


Yu-Gi-Oh! Double Back

by HappyfacePro



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga), Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-21 18:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30026175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyfacePro/pseuds/HappyfacePro
Summary: Witness the Story of Neo Yuki, the son of Jaden Yuki as he attempts to discover who he wants to be in life. Experience intense duels, action, drama, and learn more about the world of Duel Monsters!
Kudos: 1





	1. A New Future

**Author's Note:**

> Hello There! Thank you for taking the time to read this! My name is Riley, and I'm the author of Yu-Gi-Oh Double Back! This is a series that I've been writing for on Fanfiction.Net since 2018. However, after a year hiatus, I've decided to begin posting chapters onto here as well! I will be posting the first nine chapters here, with chapter 10 coming to both here and fanfiction simultaneously on March 19th. Chapter 10 has been in the works for so long and I can't wait to share it. (If you want a small teaser, there's a bit of chapter 10 posted onto fanfiction called Chapter 9.5). Here, however, I will simply be posting 9.5 and 10 together as it originally was. For now, please enjoy the first nine chapters here. This fanfiction really means a lot to me, so please feel free to leave a comment, I really cherish feedback no matter how brutal as it encourages me not to only become a better writer but to pump out the next chapter ASAP! Also if you're interested in potentially helping me beta read chapter 10 and future chapters please do not hesitate to ask me! Alright, I'll stop rambling, enjoy the chapters.

There the young boy stood. A distant island, seemingly as old as time, surrounded by the endless ocean. The sun giving off the infamous orange hue of a sunset. The light breeze commanded everything around it into a slow dance. The trees surrounding the boy, the ocean in front of him, the old wooden dock he stood upon, even his short cream-colored hair, all moved slowly up and down, back and forth. He stood there at the edge of the dock and watched the ocean. The deep blue seemingly stretching out infinitely. The sheer beauty immobilized the boy. He wanted to walk down the sea, to where the sun and the water met; he wished to encapture this beauty as much as he possibly could.

He cautiously moved his foot towards the water and began to take the first step. Slowly, cautiously, until the foot greeted the water, causing only the slightest ripple. The boy then put all of his weight on that foot, trying to gain a hold of the slippery substance, but the water didn't budge. He had taken his first step into seeing what was ahead. The boy looked ahead once more, but this time there was a new figure out in the distance. A young man, appearing to be the boy's age, stood there in the center of the ocean, no movement, no ripples, with the exception of his blazing red vest as well as his messy dark brown hair, both dancing to the same rhythm the boy's hair was following. The hero, too, looked at the sunset, seemingly wanting to approach it as well, but had given up on trying to get any closer. He gave no mind to the boy but still seemed to wordlessly beckon him as if telling him that he could not only reach where the hero was but surpass him.

Invigorated, the boy began to take his second step, still cautiously moving his next foot to stay entirely on top of the water. His foot began to reach the water, but this time, the water wasn't as forgiving. In an instant, the boy lost his grip and fell hands first into the ocean. He sank below, the hero still insight, above the boy. The boy furiously began to stroke upwards. Swinging his arms back and forth, kicking his legs left and right, but the more he moved, the more he sunk. 

Further, further. Dark, darker. The boy squinted as he reached his and upwards as the last effort to reach the hero, to beckon him to save him, but he remained motionless. The boy, trapped in eternal darkness, with seemingly no way out, closed his eyes as his tears blended in with the rest of the ocean.

The eyes of the young teen slowly opened to the sight of a wall and the sound of an alarm clock. Next to the wall lay the boy's phone placed face down on the bright wood nightstand currently being shined by the light seeping in through the window directly next to it. The boy picked up his phone, facing it towards him, and turned it on. In an instant, the phone's screen flickered on, showing the time to the young man's eyes.

"8:15." The phone showed as it brightened up the boy's face. The boy stared at the phone for a long while, barely blinking.

The boy sighed as he placed his phone down and rose out of the warmth of the covers. His bare feet touched the hardwood lightly as the boy lifted himself. The boy stood still, his light brown hair shining from the light that was beaming from the window next to him. The sound of the alarm clock once again rang out into his ears.

"Tsk." The boy muttered quietly as he began to walk out of his room, passing by a nicely organized dresser. On top of the dresser was a small black backpack that still had the price tag attached to one of its zippers. The boy walked out of his room. In front of him lay a hallway, each wall having several pictures, both large and small, displaying his family’s life for all to see. The boy followed the sound of the alarm to reach a closed door. The boy opened the door to see a bed with a man inside snoring away.

The boy sighed as he walked around the piles of cards on the floor over toward the nightstand next to the bed, where the alarm clock lied, still beeping extremely loudly. He placed his hand on the button and pressed it. Immediately the sound stopped, only leaving the more annoying sound of the man snoring. The boy walked out of the room and slammed the door shut. He then walked out of the hallway to a bright living room; the room split into two parts. One containing an old couch with a TV hung up directly to the wall, the other containing a small island surrounded by several kitchen machines and drawers. The boy turned his head towards the oven, which was displaying the time.

"8:18." The clock read. The boy then walked over towards the front door and opened it. The outside contained a small garden filled with several types of flowers and crops surrounded by a fence. The boy walked through a pathway between the garden and stopped at a bright white mailbox at the end.

He opened the mail to find a fancy envelope inside. The boy took a glance at it. It was clearly high-quality paper, and it had a wax seal with the letters D and A written on the maroon wax. He took the envelope and went back inside.

The boy turned to the living room and sat down on the old couch. He stared at the front of the envelope.

"To Neo Yuki." Was written on the front of it. Neo turned the envelope over to the other side and pulled up the flap. He then pulled out the nicely folded letter and opened it. He stared at the letter and began to read it.

"To Neo Yuki,

Congratulations! Your application for the Fusion Dimension's very own Duel Academy has been accepted! We look forward to an incredible four years with you as one of our various students! Please attend the placement test on August 3rd at Neo Domino city in the Synchro Dimension in order to place you in the correct classes and dorm for you! Failure to attend the placement test will result in base classes as well as you being in the Slifer Red Dorm. Once again, we look forward to having you be a part of our illustrious academy!

Sincerely,

Alexis Yuki, Principal of Duel Academy."

Neo sighed as he threw the letter over the couch. The letter flung out and then slowly floated down onto the coffee table in front of the old couch.

"Great..." Neo said as he began to slouch. He reached for the remote placed on the coffee table, and turned on the TV. In an instant, the tv bursted out with a huge sound.

"Welcome to the Duel Monsters Summer Nationals!" The TV said as the Duel Monsters logo formed on the television. The TV then cut to two men in chairs sitting across from each other. The one on the left shouted out in excitement.

"Goooooood Morning, people in all four dimensions!" He said bombastically. "And welcome to the Duel Monsters Summer Nationals!" The man continued, "Today, we have an exciting matchup that's gonna be insane!"

"That's right, Jimmy." The man next to him said, "This morning at the beautiful Heartland Stadium; we have our finalists who both have made it through thick and thin to be here at the top. We have 21-year-old Darrell Hudson, the previous Summer Champion who was gone through all of the previous rounds just to defend his title."

The camera cut to a picture of Darrell, a tall, sturdy man, with thick black hair and a stern face. Next to his image appeared simple statistics, his win-loss ratio, his deck, as well as the fact that he has been champion for the past 3 years. Neo took a glance down the statistics but then changed his focus towards the picture halfway through, realizing that nothing in Darrell's profile was new to him. Darrell had been analysed by every single reporter at this point, so most of his secrets of how he duels, his story, his tendencies were already oh so clear to Neo.

"And going against our champion is none other than the 12-year-old dueling prodigy, Allie Yuki!" Jimmy said as the picture of Darryl changed to the face of the young girl, her face giving off a confident smile in front of her long dirty blond hair. The statistics made a flashy change to Allie's stats. Allie's win-loss record was very impressive to everyone, having only a few losses recorded, once again; however, this wasn't new to Neo.

"That's right, Jimmy!" The man once again said, "Following in the footsteps of her mother and father, Alexis and Jaden Yuki, she's a prodigy when it comes to duel monster, joining the illustrious Duel Academy when she was only ten. She's been a fan-favorite as one of the many rookies that appeared a couple of years back, but this time she's looking for the win. But enough with the talking, let's get to the match!"

The screen then cut to a wide shot of the stadium, thousands of fans sitting in the stands, all cheering as the field in the center filled with vibrant lights making the floor of the area glow with such radiance. The field then formed the shape of a rectangle. The stage had been set. First, from the front side of the stadium came Darrell from inside a tunnel connected to the center field. He walked casually as the sound of keys in the pocket of his blue jeans rang out for everyone to hear. He eventually stopped walking at the very edge of the rectangle. The camera cut to a pan of Darrell. He was wearing a green polo with blue jeans; his black hair laid flat on his head with a few strands of hair covering one of his eyes. He hadn't cut it in a while. He began to move his right hand towards his hip, which on it was his deck carrier. He opened the box strapped to his jeans and pulled out his deck. He then moved his right hand back down to his side, still grasping his deck.

Next, the camera cut to the opposite side of the stadium as the floor began to shine vibrantly with various colors. From the opening came running out Allie, her lengthy hair moving all around as he sprinted to her spot. As she approached the end of the field, she twisted her right foot towards the left, causing her body to drift towards the end and then finally stopping at the end. She clearly had practiced this sometime before this event. She then, following suit to Darrell, pulled her deck from the deck holder, fastened to her light blue jeans, and quickly slammed the fragile cards into her standard Obelisk Blue academy duel disk.

"Alright, folks!" said Jimmy once again in a very excited manner. "The fight is on! Who's going to take it all! Will Darrell come out on top once again?! Or will there be an upset with the victory of Allie? Well, let's stop waiting and find out!"

In an instant, the crowd cheered with joy as the time had finally arrived. The two competitors held their duel disks facing one another. The machines strapped to thier arms began to make sounds as if communicating with each other. Then the field lit up once again, this time forming rectangles in order to make the field. Then, at the same time, both Darryl and Allie finally opened their mouths and said a single word. The word that lights up the world with excitement for the events to come.

"Duel!"

As the challenger, Allie was allowed to go first. She hastily put her right hand on top of her deck, which was inserted in the front of the bright blue duel disk, and then pulled on the top card with such force that the cards under the top card shifted forward just a tad, as she exclaimed, "I draw!"

Allie took a glance at her cards. Within the short time of having her hand, her confidant look indicated that she had already known what she wanted to do. 

She took a card from her hand and began to place it on the monster zone of her duel disk as she once again cheerfully said, "From my hand, I'll summon Angelic HERO, Freia, onto the field!" With a flash, the monster came to life; this monster represented something along the sorts of a Nordic Valkyrie, as the female monster, equipped with a shield on her right hand, drew her sword fastened to her belt. There the beautiful beast stood, facing Darrell. 

Allie then stated, "When Freia is summoned to the field, I'm allowed to add one Ritual HERO monster from the deck to hand!" Allie then moved her disk toward her, tapped the screen placed on top of it, and in an instant, the selected card shot out of the duel disk; Allie then caught the card. Darrell gave her a nod, indicating that he wasn't going to interfere. 

After confirming that the coast was clear, Allie then took another card from her hand and then activated it. 

The card flashed on the field as Allie stated, "I activate my spell card, HERO Training! This card allows me to discard up to 3 cards, and for each card I discard, Freia gains that many levels!" Allie then took two cards and inserted them back into the duel disk. "Since I discarded 2, Freia gains two levels!" Allie stated. The camera then cut to the monster as it glowed briefly, and then the monster's stats showed up once again, indicating that the levels changed from four to six. Allie then took one of her last two cards and placed it on the field. "I set one card face down and end my turn," she said as the card showed up face down on the field. Allie then opened her mouth to say her catchphrase, which had been inherited from her father. "Get your Game O-”

The TV turned black as Neo faced the remote towards it to shut it off. He put the remote down next to the letter, which he had also thrown onto the coffee table. Neo sat up straight, giving a long sigh as he placed his back upon the cushion. 

"How boring…" He muttered quietly to himself. He then got up walked around the couch back to the kitchen side of the living room. "Guess I'm making breakfast today." He once again quietly stated as he opened the pantry and began to pick out the ingredients needed to make pancakes.

No less than an hour later, the room was filled with the scent of pancake batter and syrup. Neo sat on a stool next to the island of the kitchen as he slowly took bites out of the fresh pancake placed in front of him. His eyes eventually met that of the wall which was in front of him. Nothing was interesting there; he just didn't have anything else to look at. He looked at it, attempting to look at the fine details of the plain white wall. His eyes began to lose focus as Neo proceeded to get lost into a trance. He was thinking about the letter. 

He didn't really have any intention of going to Duel Academy; in fact, he wanted nothing to do with it. He only applied due to the enormous pressure from his father, who had a firm belief that Neo would love it there. He didn't give the test or the essay that much effort, and yet here was the letter, welcoming him to the illustrious academy with open arms. 

What was he going to do? Undoubtedly, his father, just at the sight of the letter, would get extremely excited. For him, he always wished for his son to follow in his footsteps. A cheerful student, always rushing into danger and passionately dueling along the way. This was the life of Jaden Yuki, and he wanted nothing more but to see his son, who was almost a spitting image of him to go to Duel Academy, the place where he became further and further enthralled in dueling and the actions that came before and after. Needless to say, it might break his heart to see his son wanting to go a different route. This was the predicament in Neo's head. 

He thought up of different scenarios, different ways he could go about the end of his calm summer, but none of them seemed to end with both of them happy. One was going to get the shorter end of the stick.

Suddenly, Neo woke up from his trance, he once again was staring at the wall, but now there was a new sound, the sound of loud rustling in the room which Neo had closed. The door burst open and out came the 38-year-old Jaden Yuki. He stood with the hand on the doorknob. His brown hair with some hints of white was still a mess. He quickly looked down the hallway to look at Neo. Their eyes made contact.

"Morning Dad," Neo said monotonously as he put his fork down on the plate. "You're a little late. And by a little, I mean a lot."

Jaden quickly moved forward and shut the door. "Ahh, rats! I knew I'd wake up late!" He said as he did a facepalm. Jaden then ran a little down the hallway and then slip through the rest of it since he was wearing socks. He stopped himself right at the end of the bright hallway. "Why didn't you wake me up?" He exclaimed as he dashed over to the couch in an attempt to catch what was left of the duel

"If that loud alarm clock couldn't wake you up, there's no way I would've been able to," Neo said as he moved his hand towards the glass of milk next to his plate. "Don't worry; it’s recorded."

Jaden turned on the TV, only to be greeted with a family sitcom. Jaden sighed as he slumped. "Ah, but the recording's not the same! You gotta see it when it's live, son! That's the only way to watch a duel!" He exclaimed.

"What does it matter?" Neo responded as he took both his plate and his glass, stood up with them in hand, and walked over to the sink. "It's the same exact thing. Besides, that duel wasn't all that exciting." Neo placed the plate and glass in the sink and said quietly, almost as to keep it a secret, "The duel was over as soon as the first turn ended".

"A duel's a duel! There's nothing boring about that! Plus, your sister was dueling! She made it all the way to the finals this year!" Jaden said as he proceeded to open the recordings menu and find the program.

"Mhm, she was bound to eventually," Neo said as he walked over to his room and closed the door. Inside, Neo took off his white cotton shirt and blue pajama shorts and placed them in the hamper. He then opened up his drawer and took out bright tan khaki shorts, which shined from the sunlight beaming from the window as well as a plain navy shirt. He closed the drawer and put on the shorts and shirt. He looked at himself in the wide mirror on top of the drawer, and proceeded to head back out. Neo walked out of the hallway he turned his head towards Jaden, who was still sifting through the menus. "I'm headed out for a bit," Neo said. "There's some pancakes left if you want some."

"Be back before noon!" Jaden said as he finally finds the program and selects it.

Neo gave a quiet nod and walked towards the door took his leave.

Jaden smiled as he saw the program beginning. "Aw, I can't wait!" Jaden said to himself. He attempted to stretch out his legs, but instead, his shin hit the corner of the coffee table. Jaden gave a short exclamation of pain. He looked down at his shin and then at the coffee table. "That's way too close to the couch." He said. "I'll move it." He said as he got up and placed his hands on the coffee table in a position to push it. Before he pushed it, a piece of paper caught his eye. He took his hands off of the coffee table and picked up the fancy letter. "What's this? The bills shouldn't have come this early." He said as he took a glanced at it. He suddenly realized what it was and he gasped in surprise and shock.

Neo walked through the small garden, its flowers glistening as the sprinklers had recently turned on. He grabbed the old silver bike which was leaning on one of the sides of the fences surrounding the garden. He dragged it through the white gate, which had been left open last night and Neo then got on the bike and proceeded down the concrete pathway that went from Neo's house on top of a green hill, down to the plaza of the small hillside town Neo and Jaden called home. Neo went down the hill, making sure to bike slowly as biking too hard could cause the bike to go into an unstoppable speedy fury to the foot of the hill. Neo looked at the horizon to see the small brick plaza, only a few people were there at this time, but once the afternoon hit, it would soon become bustling, as most of the shops and restaurants were located there. Neo eventually reached this town center. He rode down the main street, glancing at every store. Some were still closed. Neo turned his head towards him again and proceeded down the road until he reached a small building for dry cleaning.

Neo stopped the bike and dragged it into the sidewalk. He then walked with it to the glass wall of the building and leaned the bike on the wall. He decided that it'd waste time to place a lock on it as he knew no one would go and steal it. Neo opened the glass window, which caused a bell placed on top of it to ring, indicating the young man with black hair running the store that someone has entered.

"Ah, morning, Neo." He chirped. "You're up pretty early today."

"When am I not awake early, Greg?" Neo responded as he closed the door and walk to the front counter where Greg was positioned. Greg was wearing black jeans, which must've made him highly uncomfortable in the scorching weather of the summer. Along with the jeans, he was wearing a blue polo which was standard to wear in this dry-cleaning establishment. Greg was more of a night owl type of person, and as such, his face gave off a tired expression. The coffee he drank from a mug on the counter must not have kicked in yet.

"True, you are quite the early bird." He said calmly. "Unlike most people here," He said, taking a glance at the empty street. "Anyways," he said as he turned around and took off one of the clothes on the rack placed behind him. "I presume that you're here for this." He said as he thrust the old Slifer red duel academy vest hung on a hanger that Jaden had worn a long time ago, now in a polished state, as if ready to be worn again.

"Thanks," Neo said as he grabbed the hanger on top of the counter and pulled it across so that it sat next to him. "My old man was real freaked out about this thing when he spilled a bunch of coffee on it."

"Oh, I'm sure." Greg hastily responded. "That thing was a big part of his legacy. Though I don't know how well it fits him anymore."

"It doesn't," Neo said. "He just keeps wearing it." Neo turned his head to look at the uniform. It was glistening from the sunlight coming from the glass windows. Suddenly a sound of cheering came from behind Neo. He turned around toward the sound to see what made such a sound; his eyes landed on the old TV, hung on the bottom right corner of the building his ears began to focus on the noise.

It was the Heartland Stadium once again; there was confetti as the camera showed the mayor of Heartland, Tomison Heartland handing a trophy towards none other than Allison Yuki, Neo's sister. The crowd went wild as Allie waved her award back and forth, signifying victory. She gave a very uplifting face as she smiled toward the audience, her Obelisk Blue vest moving back and forth.

"What an astounding upset!" Jimmy, the announcer, rang. "This year has a brand-spanking-new summer champion in the form of Allieeeeee Yuki!"

Greg looked at the TV to see what Neo was looking at. "Oh yeah, your sister won, it was a pretty impressive duel too. She had a trump card faced down on the field the whole duel and when she activated it, Darrell just straight up lost." Greg said in an upbeat tone.

Neo sighed. "Figures," he said in a monotonous voice. Neo turned back towards his khakis and took out his wallet. He opened it and said, "Anyhow, what do I owe you?"

"Oh, don't even worry about paying me!" Greg said happily. "It's nice seeing you again; I kinda missed seeing you after I went to high school."

"Are you sure?" Neo said as he gave a confused look towards Greg.

"Oh, absolutely!" Greg said. "Just consider it payment for being my study buddy."

"Oh, alright then," Neo said as he slowly put his wallet back into his shorts. "Well, I better get going," Neo said as he turned around and began to walk toward the door, still carrying the uniform. "Thank you so much." He said with a smile as he opened the door, the bell rang once again.

"Anytime," Greg responded as Neo left the building.

Neo once again picked up his bike. As he lifted the bike up, he realized an issue; he had no place to put the uniform. Neo looked around in the middle of the sidewalk, still no one was around. Neo sighed as he concluded that there was only one way he was going to be able to bring back the uniform and ride his bike: He was going to have to wear it.

Neo took the red vest off of the hanger and put the old uniform on, making sure to pull his arms all the way through each sleeve and popping the vest out a little. Neo looked at the sides of it. It was a perfect fit; it almost looked made for him. Was he really that similar in shape to his father in his age? He looked at himself in the glass wall reflection. He tried to picture his father at his age but couldn't see it. Neo gave another sigh. 

"This looks…Crazy stupid," he said before proceeding to take it off. Instead of putting the uniform on, he tied it around his waist and looked back up at himself. Now it was at least bearable. Neo picked up the white, plastic hanger which was on the floor. And shoved it in his pocket, half of it still sticking out. He then got back on his bike and proceeded down the road once again; he headed out of the barren town center back to the countryside of the town, where he headed to his eighth-grade history teacher. Neo loved Mr. Desner, he had introduced Neo to the wonders of history, Neo's true passion. Every event, war, revolution had made it fascinating to Neo. To Neo, h was a role model, and he wanted to seek his advice on his little high school predicament. He thought that if anyone knew a way out of the maze that was his issue, it was him.


	2. Departure

Neo biked down the country fields of the small town. Everything was mostly dry; most of the grass surrounding the concrete pathway was dried up. The sun was beginning to burn up the day once again; today, it was forecasted to be a whole ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit, a heat Neo did not want to deal with. It was about late morning now, and still, no one wanted to go outside in the scorching heat. Neo himself was sweating quite heavily despite him slowly biking down the pathway. Neo would look down at the red uniform every once in a while to see if it was still tied to his waist and then made sure the newly cleaned uniform wasn't wet from the sweat that Neo was generating. 

After what had seemed like an eternity, Neo saw a house in the distance. Even from far away, Neo could still see the lush crops and flowers which were surrounding the house. It was a completely different color compared to the dead grass surrounding it. Neo trekked on; eventually, he got close enough to spot a tall man with a bright green hose, watering the well-tended crops. As the man came into view, Neo was able to see him more clearly.

The man was about 48 in age and was about 6 feet in height. A straw hat was covering up his short white hair with dark brown strands. He was also wearing khaki shorts and a bright purple shirt that had palm trees printed on it. He looked as if he was a tourist going to one of the colorful pendulum dimension's beaches advertised frequently in the fusion dimension. This was the typical attire for the old man, who was still a bit away from him.

Mr. Desner turned his head and looked at Neo, for a man who claimed that he was getting old, his eyesight seemed never to fail him. Neo noticed this and took one of his hands controlling the bike, and gave a wave to him. He waved back almost immediately, indicating that he knew that it was Neo. Neo eventually reached the house in the middle of nowhere and stopped his bike right in front of it.

Mr. Desner walked over toward the faucet sending water to the hose and stopped it. While he was doing this, Neo got off his bike and leaned it on the silver mailbox which stood in front of the house.

"Well, well well," the man said in slight surprise as he put down his hose. "If it isn't Neo. Fancy seeing you again". Neo walked towards him.

"Nice seeing you again," Neo said in a friendly tone as he walked over towards the tall teacher. Neo stopped and shook hands with him. His hands were rough, which made sense as he always did a lot of fieldwork to keep his small bunch of crops in top condition. "Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Neo said as he looked up at the tall man.

"As did I,” the teacher said confidently. "Nonetheless, I'm quite pleased to see one of my students come all the way over here to see me.” Neo and Mr. Desner stared at each other for a bit, but then Mr. Desner eventually broke the silence, "Care to help me water?" He said as he picked back up his hose.

"Sure, I don't mind,” Neo replied as he walked towards the watering can that sat beside the faucet and picked it up.

"Excellent," he said as he turned the hose toward the bucket in which Neo was holding and shot water into it until it was full. "You can start with the right side; I’ll do the left."

Neo and split apart to each side of the house, both of them made sure to thoroughly water every crop. There wasn't much talking at; first, both of them were enjoying the sight of the crops. Neo eventually asked how his day was and how he overall felt about the ending summer break. To both of these questions, Mr. Desner answered with the phrase, "It's going.” Neo was wasting time; he kept beating around the bush, avoiding his main point; he felt like he had to as the whole tone of the situation was awkward. 

Then all of a sudden, the sound of Mr. Desner's hose stopped. Neo turned around to see why he stopped; he saw Mr. Desner's back as the last bits of water came dripping out of the hose. Why had he stopped? He hadn't finished, and it wasn't like to stop midway during something. He gave a sigh as he put his hose down on the ground and turned around.

"So, would you care to tell me why you decided to come to the middle of nowhere just to see me?" Mr. Desner said as if he was interrogating Neo. "Because you're not the person to go to someone just to say hi."

Neo took a deep breath; he clearly hadn't been prepared to ask for advice, and yet here he was, in a scenario that he was nowhere near ready for. Neo placed his watering can down on the bright grass and turned to face Mr. Desner. He had no idea how to go about asking about his predicament. Neo hastily took a mash of words and blurted them out, "Well, uh, you see, I was, um, having issues with what to do at the end of this summer."

"What do you mean?" the teacher asked in confusion. "There are plenty of things to do during summer; I’m sure you can find something to do."

"No, not that, I uh", Neo said, flustered. Neo stopped for a moment to gather up what he wanted to say. "I got an acceptance letter from Duel Academy. I don't like dueling, so I was going to decline it, but I know that my dad would be disappointed in me," Neo said after much hesitation. Neo had finally gotten out the problematic part of his question. Neo took a quick pause once again and then continued his explanation. "I'm just not really sure what to do, so I wanted to see if you had any advice on it."

"I see,” the old man said as he closed his eyes in an attempt to think of the correct solution. He eventually opened his eyes and mouth. "Before I answer you, I need to ask you something."

"Shoot,” Neo said, curious about what Desner had to ask about.

"What is it that you want to do with your life?" asked. Now that was a tough question, perhaps one of the hardest for a young teenager. What path did he want to take? What route was truly right for him? Such questions always floated through Neo's mind. Neo looked down at the grass around him, trying to think quickly about what his answer was. This was a question to which Neo did not have an answer. It appeared that Neo had taken a bit too long, as Mr. Desner asked another question, "You don't really know, do you?".

"Yea…", Neo said, still looking down at the ground. "I have zero clue."

"Neo, " he said as he walked over and put his hand on the uncertain teenager's shoulder. "Look at me in the eyes.” Neo followed this order, and his eyes stared into the bright green eyes of Mr. Desner. The bright-eyed teacher laid silent for a few seconds to think and then gave his answer. "Go to Duel Academy.”

"You think I should go?" Neo said, confused.

"Yes,” the tall teacher said as he put his arm back beside him. "Now, let me tell you my reasoning," He said as he began to go into a brief lecture. "Duel Academy, while yes, its priority is on Duel Monsters and the study of the game, due to the recent laws restricting Duel Monsters, the academy was forced to include standard education into its curriculum. Though I'm sure, you already know this, correct?" Neo gave a brief nod. "Because of these new laws, the school is now more open towards other pathways in life, which is why I believe you should go—ever heard of the phrase Carpe Diem? Well, this academy is an opportunity that you're never going to get again. And as you know, my whole idea in life is to seize the opportunities in life. That place will give you a fine education, and perhaps maybe you'll find where you're passion truly lies there."

"Yeah..."Neo said. "I can't really argue about that one." Neo turned around and began walking out of the garden. He stopped by the mailbox and turned back around. "I need to head back now. Dad wanted me back by lunch. Thank you for the help," Neo said with a smile.

"It was my pleasure,” Mr. Desner replied, smiling back at Neo. "By the way, that jacket looks nice wrapped around your waist like that. It looks like it fits perfectly there."

"Thanks," Neo said as he looked down to see the red uniform tied around his waist. He then looked back up and then turned around and grabbed his bike. Neo gave a final wave goodbye as he got back on the silver bike and went back the way he came.

While riding through the desolate pathway, Neo thought about what had been said. It was true that the recent laws had made Duel Academy more open towards other job interests, but it does still focus on dueling. Why would he want to go to a Duel Academy if he had no interest in dueling? Neo attempted to answer this question as he once again passed through the center of town, now more populated than it was this morning. As Neo passed by the dry cleaning, he had a decent answer, albeit not one fully fleshed out.

Duel Academy, even though it does focus on dueling, still is a prestigious academy, which indicated that the core classes should be extremely good. In such an academy, the teachers should be top-notch, and while Neo would have to go to a class of dueling, it's not like he's never participated in an elective he didn't enjoy. Plus, going to this academy would surely make Neo's dad happy. When Neo thought about it from this perspective, it seemed like a win-win. 

As Neo biked back up the hill, he came to the conclusion that going to Duel Academy wouldn't be so bad after all. It was settled, Neo would go on August 3rd, which was only a few days away, and attend the academy.

Neo finally reached his home as he came up with this decision. Neo placed his bike exactly where it was before he had left and walked through the garden once again. He glanced at each of the flowers. They were all a little dry, as expected from this kind of heat; however, the flowers were still in full bloom. They made the dull house stand out as the petals shined with vibrant colors. Neo reached the end of the small garden and came face to face with the front door. He put his hand on the old, brass doorknob. Before he opened it, Neo stopped and thought briefly about Jaden and what he would be doing at this time.

He was more than likely still watching the recording. Neo then thought about how he would tell him the news. It probably wasn't all that important how he went about it, but Neo wanted to make sure he got it right,he didn't want to stutter like those nervous students during a presentation to the class. Neo figured that he'd probably wait until Jaden finished watching, he gets extremely focused during his viewing of duels and often blocks out any noise not related to the Duel.

Neo took a deep breath and turned the handle slowly; the room was quiet on the other side, which wasn't common when his old man was awake. Neo found this odd as he cautiously turned the handle. Neo then pushed the door open, and instantly, the sound of an air horn blared in his ear.

Neo jumped back, a little frightened as he took a look at what made such a noise. The noise had come from none other than Jaden, who was holding it along with a confetti popper. On top of him was a bright red party hat, which was a tad tilted from the craziness of his hair. Neo then took a brief look at the "Congratulations" sign, which hung from the top of the kitchen.

Jaden laughed a bit and put the air horn down on the kitchen island. "CONGRATULATIONS, SON!" he said with the loudest voice he could muster as he took the confetti popper and popped it, making the confetti shoot out and then land in front of him.

Neo chuckled a bit as he went inside, "What did I do?" he said as he closed the door.

"Why you got into the greatest school of all time, of course!" Jaden said as he also put the popper down and walked over to Neo. "I saw the letter!" he said as he stopped in front of Neo and put his hand on top of Neo's head. "I'm proud of you son, you're gonna have so much fun there!", Jaden said as he looked at Neo and smiled. Jaden then put his hand back down.

"Thanks, dad,” Neo said with a half-smile. "Oh, before I forget, I picked up your uniform,” Neo said as he untied the uniform from his waist and then straightened it out and showed it to Jaden.

"Oh, thank you,” Jaden said. He then pointed at Neo with his right hand as he put his other hand on his hip. "But, I think you should keep it."

"Huh?" Neo said as he tilted his head slightly. "Isn't this important to you?"

"Yeah, it is; it’s almost like a sign of my legacy,” Jaden said as he crossed his arms. "But my legacy's over. It's your turn to carry that now."

Neo looked at the vest. "It's my turn now, huh?" Neo looked at it a little confused. Was this jacket really all that important?

Jaden smiled and turned around, "But enough deep stuff", he said as we walked to the island of the kitchen and grabbed a chocolate cake with round sprinkles all in different colors, which was covered by a plastic roof. Jaden took the cake and showed it to Neo. "It's time to celebrate! You like chocolate cake, right? That's all the store had."

"Yeah, Chocolate Cake 's good,” Neo replied as he walked over toward the island. Neo personally didn't like chocolate all that much, but it'd be a shame in his eyes to let the cake go to waste.

Jaden and Neo sat at the chairs next to the island, and each got a slice of chocolate. Jaden told a bunch of his stories about his time at Duel Academy to Neo. Most of them were about pranks and dueling moments, things Neo wasn't all that interested in, but nonetheless, Neo still enjoyed hearing about his father's past. Jaden talked for about an hour while both of them got more slices of cake in an attempt to finish it. By the time that both of them were done, it had hit 3 o'clock. They were both completely full. Jaden got up and picked up the last couple of slices of the cake and put them in the fridge. Jaden then walked back over to Neo.

"I gotta go,” Jaden said. "My fantasy dueling league's meeting soon, and I should probably go to the gym and burn off the calories.” Jaden smiled, "Man, I miss having that fast metabolism."

Neo chuckled a bit. "Yeah, I guess that's one good thing about being young." He said, smiling. "You'll be back before dinner, right?"

"Oh yeah, for sure,” Jaden said as he opened the door. "I might pick up some fast food or something for dinner; I’ll call you before I order."

'kay", Neo said as he gave a wave goodbye.

Jaden smiled as he followed suit and then closed the door.

Neo took a few seconds to relax and then got up from his seat and began to clean up the confetti, that shot out from the poppers. Neo gathered it up and put it in the trash, which was getting a little full and needed to be taken out soon. While Neo was cleaning, he couldn't shake the thought of what Jaden had said. Why was it his turn to "carry the legacy"? Why did he have to instead of Allie, someone who was perhaps much more suited for the job? Neo finished his cleaning and grabbed the uniform which had been placed around the chair Neo sat in. He held it up and looked at it. Why was this legacy his responsibility? Neo wasn't a duelist; he wasn't even a fan of Duel Monsters. So why was this given to him? Neo stood there, looking at the uniform, trying to find the answer, but to no avail. He became frustrated, unable to answer this question and aggressively put the uniform back on the chair. Neo walked through the hallway and went into his room. Neo looked at the backpack and sighed. Whether or not his question would find its solution or not, only time would tell. There was no point in lamenting about this issue right now. Neo only had a few days left before he would leave, and he was nowhere near ready.

Over the next few days, Neo began to pack his things. He took only a small portion of his clothes, as he wouldn't need too many and put them neatly inside his leather suitcase Jaden had lent to him to use. Once that was taken care of, Neo began to pack some other things. He packed his silver laptop along with the flash drive he used in eighth grade and would continue to use it for this year. Neo then took a bit to consider what else he needed, but he found that most of his other possessions weren't worth bringing. Once that was all snug in his suitcase, Neo moved on to his backpack. Neo bought some standard black folders and number two pencils as well as a set of colored pens, just in case one of his teachers was one of those artsy ones who like their notes in different colors. Finally, Neo ended his packing spree with his yearbook from eighth grade, in case he wanted it for some reason. He took this backpack and placed it inside the suitcase. If it weren't for the tight packing, all of this stuff certainly wouldn't have fit all in one suitcase.

Eventually, August 3rd finally arrived. Neo woke up in the morning a similar way to his standard routine, however this time, he was awake at five o'clock in order to catch the six o'clock train to the synchro dimension. Neo briefly ate a small donut and milk for breakfast and then put on a plain black shirt along with blue jeans. Neo then fixed his hair, not to where everything was full of gel, but enough so that his hair was flat and didn't have random portions sticking out. Neo then pulled out the handle to the suitcase and rolled outside to Jaden's old red card. At five-thirty, the barely awake Jaden came out of his room, wearing some black jeans and a light jacket, it was still a tad cold outside. Both Neo and Jaden got ready independently, not uttering a word to each other until they left. Neo finished before Jaden did and watched a bit of tv, but Jaden appeared from the bathroom before long.

"You ready?" Jaden said as he walked toward the island and picked up the keys to the car.

Neo turned off the tv. "Yeah, just one sec," he said as he walked back into his room. Neo looked at it; it was now very empty, appearing as if no one ever lived in that room. Neo took a breath and then looked at the dresser; the top was empty, except for the uniform, folded nicely on the top of it. Neo picked it up and unfolded it. Neo then once again decided to put it on, slipping the sleeves through his arms and then giving it a pull for it to pop. Neo once again looked at himself in the mirror placed on the wall. Neo turned slightly. He didn't like the look of it, but he figured that it was cold outside and it'd make Jaden happy. Neo then walked out of his room for the last time and walked towards Jaden. "Alright let's go."

Jaden looked at Neo and saw the uniform on him. "Aw, you look fresh, son", Jaden said in a pleased tone. Neo smiled.

"No one says that anymore dad," Neo said as he walked to the door and opened it. "Let's go"

Jaden laughed a little bit and then walked outside with Neo. Jaden opened the trunk of an old red jeep and Neo then proceeded to lift the suitcase and place it inside. After, Jaden and Neo drove down the hill to the town center, where the train center lied. Jaden and Neo didn't share too many conversations on the drive there, both were tired and Jaden was attempting to drive down a hill in the dark, a task that required concentration. Within a short five-minute drive, they arrived at the train station. The plaza was currently barren as it was still very early; there was however, a few people here, waiting for the same train Neo was. Jaden and Neo got out of the old red hatchback, took out the suitcase, and walked into the station with the case dragging behind Neo lazily. They both walked towards a machine, and Jaden began to fiddle with it, eventually putting in five dollars for the ticket. The ticket the came out from the bottom as the screen gave a big, "Thank You!". Jaden handed the ticket to Neo and, without a word went to the waiting station to wait for the train. When they reached there, Jaden sighed and stopped. He turned to Neo.

"Well, this is it, son." He said. "The train should be here any minute now."

"You gonna be alright by yourself Dad?" Neo said with concern.

Jaden gave a small chuckle, "Aw come on, I'm not that old", He said. Jaden walked towards Neo and gave him a hug. "I am going to miss you though". "Make sure not to do too many crazy things there", he said as he let go and once again looked at Neo. "But always make sure you're having fun,” Jaden said with a smile.

"I will, Dad.", Neo said as he looked up at him. A chime began to ring, indicating that the train would be there very soon. "Well, looks like it's time to go", Neo said as he walked a bit past Jaden.

"Oh wait!", Jaden said hastily. Neo quickly turned around. Jaden shuffled through his jacket pocket and pulled out a deck of cards with a ribbon tied around it. "These are all my old cards from when I was in Duel Academy", Jaden said as he smiled and looked at the cards. "They might not be up to speed with all the new stuff, but I'm sure you could find a use for them." Jaden handed the cards to Neo's free hand.

"Oh, thanks, I'll uh, put them to good use,” Neo said as he glanced at the deck as well.

"Oh, hold up, forgot something else", Jaden quickly said. He once again shuffled through his pockets and revealed one more card. "This card is really special,” Jaden said as he gave it to Neo. "With him around, I guarantee that you'll get through just fine."

Neo looked at the card. It was a normal monster, with a picture of what appeared to be an alien. 

"Elemental HERO Neos," Neo read as he looked at the card. "Thanks, Dad, I'll take good care of it,” Neo said. He then took the deck and Neos and put it in his jean pockets, which was also carrying his phone and wallet. Suddenly, the sound of the horn rang as the train began to come into the station. Both Neo and Jaden looked at it. "That's my cue", Neo said as he walked towards the train door.

"Have fun, Neo", Jaden said with a warm smile. "Oh and say hi to your mom and sister for me"

"Of course. I'll be sure to call you too." Neo replied. The door opened, and Neo proceeded to put his foot inside. "Love you, dad", Neo said, putting his other foot inside and then moving slightly forward to get the suitcase to get on the train as well.

"I love you too, son, now go and get your game on!", Jaden said passionately as if he was giving a motivational speech.

The doors to the train closed behind Neo. There was no going back now. Neo walked into the seating area and took an empty seat by the window. Once Neo was seated, he quickly took off the uniform and placed it on the open seat next to him as he was getting embarrassed wearing such a vest. Neo then let go of the suitcase and situated it beside him. There were a couple of other people with him, mostly people commuting, but overall the train was desolate. Suddenly, the train's brakes lifted and the vehicle began to move. Neo looked at Jaden from the window and gave a wave goodbye. The train soon left the station as the sight of Jaden Yuki waving back became harder and harder to see, until he was completely out of view.


	3. The Placement Test

Even when Jaden was entirely out of sight, Neo continued to look outside the window with his head resting on his right fist. Neo stared at the dark forests and buildings, the bright lamps that illuminated the path, and the various LED lights lighting up different stoplights; all of these things zoomed past Neo as soon as he laid eyes on them. Neo took a deep breath. His summer was finally over. All of those days relaxing, going out with his few friends, and overall having fun were over. Soon, Neo would be going to a faraway island and then put through what was assumed to be the most rigorous classes of Neo's life. Language Arts, History, Math, Science, and Physical Education.

However, none of these classes scared Neo as much as the dueling class. It would undoubtedly be the hardest part of his day to get through. The lessons of how to play the game, proper deck building, dueling techniques, and various others haunted Neo with their uselessness. Neo wasn't even in the class yet, and he immediately knew that it'd be a waste of his time. At the same time, however, Neo knew it was a task he had to overcome. No matter how much he hated it, that class would still be on his transcript. He would just have to push through it.

Neo removed his head from his fist and looked down towards his jean pockets. He took his hand and put it in one of his pockets. His hand fished through the pocket briefly and then pulled out the deck of cards Jaden had given him. Neo looked at the deck once again. He undid the bright yellow ribbon keeping the pile together and placed the ribbon on top of the old red uniform, which was still beside him. Neo turned the deck around and looked at the card at the bottom. The first card had an image of what appeared to be a green birdman. His big white eyes on the picture seemed to stare into Neo's eyes. Neo shuffled through the rest of the cards, each with a different image and effect. Halfway through the pile, Neo suddenly stopped looking through and put the pile down.

"How boring…" he muttered quietly to himself so he didn't catch the attention of the few other people on the train.

Neo took the pile and put it back in his pocket. He then pulled out his phone instead, and proceed to stare at the bright blue screen, looking through several random articles he found browsing on the internet, all of the articles talked about the recent laws restricting duel monsters. This was frequent news, as the new laws angered a lot of duelists around the many dimensions, but for many others, it was a necessary act. The events of what people now called "The ARC Incident" had shown clearly that making monsters of fantasy be able to interact with real-life was overall a horrible idea, and thus all of the four dimensions agreed to limit the use of the Real Solid Vision as well as to ban any dueling system that inflicts pain to a duelist.

Many other restrictions were put into action with dueling, but these were the two main laws put into place. These articles that Neo read, showed just how contervesial these laws really were. Each article was on a different side of the debate. One argued that such a power should've never been given to the duelists and as such, agreed with the new laws. Another discussed how the Real Solid Vision is the epitome of what makes duel monsters fun and should not have been removed.

The train began to stop causing Neo to look up from his phone slowly. It came to a full stop and the sound of the doors opening began to ring out. Coming in from the doors were three teenagers, about the same age as Neo. One guy had pure black hair which was sticking out from a green baseball hat placed on top of his head. He was also wearing a green T-shirt as well as light blue jeans.

Next to him was a girl with short black hair, the color was however not as dark as the teen next to her. She wore a purple blouse along with dark blue jeans which were ripped on the knees. The girl was laughing as she was talking with the guy.

On the other side of the girl, was another guy. His short bright blond hair was neatly done so that none of it stuck out from the rest. His head was looking down at his red phone. He wore a maroon shirt with a logo of what appeared to be a fishing business as well as black basketball shorts. Neo watched as they went down the seating room and all sat down on the row directly across from Neo, instantly he went back to looking at his phone and minding his own business. However, those teenagers proceeded to chat amongst each other so loudly that Neo was forced to listen to their conversation.

"So, are you guys ready?" One of the boys asked the others of his group.

"I was born ready!" The girl responded confidently. "I've been preparing all summer for this! And I'm not about to screw it up!"

"Heh," the other boy said. "Are you sure you didn't forget your deck this time?"

"Oh shut up, that was one time!" The girl said as the sound of her punching the boy's arm seeped into Neo's ear. "I have it right here", she said as she pulled out a set of cards from her pocket. "I still can't believe that we made it into Duel Academy!"

"I know! To think that we get to be in the same school as all of those famous people!" The black-haired boy said. "It's incredible! I hope we get to meet Allie!"

"Aw, man, I hope!" The other boy added. "We probably won't share any classes with her, though."

"Yea, still though, I totally wanna duel her!" The girl said loudly with glee. "It'd be so much fun!"

"Oh, have you guys seen her interview after the Summer Nationals?" The boy with blond hair asked.

"No I haven't," the boy with green hat said. "Why? Was it interesting?"

"Oh yeah it was, check it out!" The other boy said as he handed the other boy his phone. The black haired boy grabbed the phone and played the interview, causing the sound of the interview to boom out in the room.

"Well Allie, I've really gotta hand it to you, that was an amazing duel. How did you get to be so good?" The man who was interviewing Allie asked.

Allie gave a short chuckle, "Thanks Kyle, well, it just took a lot of practice. Duel Academy was definitely helpful with bettering my dueling strategies, but I really have to thank my mom, she is, like, my guardian angel. She makes sure I'm always on track and I'm always doing the best I can possibly do." Allie responded with confidence. "I also need to thank my dad, I haven't talked to him really since I've left for Duel Academy, but I know he's always cheering me on!".

Neo sighed as he was forced to listen to the interview. It made sense that Allie hadn't mentioned him, he didn't help Allie all that much in her journey. Still, it bugged Neo that he seemed to almost not exist in the Yuki family. Compared to Allie, and his mom and dad, all of whom have been extremely successful, Neo was nothing. Thoughts like these often made Neo feel very inadequate. Anxious to let this thought go away, Neo hastily grabbed his suitcase and opened it; he then haphazardly riffled through the insides and dragged out white earbuds putting them in his ear and using loud music in an attempt to drown out the sound of the interview.

Neo listened to the loud obnoxious music for the rest of the trip, he sat there listening to every note and word in every song that played. He nearly fell asleep halfway through the trip, but he refused to let the comfort take him into sleep as he was afraid he would miss his stop. Eventually, the train came to a stop once more. Neo looked up to read what stop it was, only to realize that he was finally in the synchro dimension. Neo took his earphones out and put them back into his suitcase. Once the train came to a full stop, Neo got up from his seat pulled out the handle to his suitcase, and got out of his seating row. He was about to leave and then stopped as he remembered the uniform which was still there on the seat. Neo hastily grabbed it and quickly tied it around his waist once again as he didn't want to carry it.

Instantly as he stepped outside, Neo saw the wondrous city of Neo Domino. Its tall skyscrapers seemed to shoot into the heavens. Neo looked down the street, he saw tons and tons of people, all of different sizes, shapes, colors, and personalities. Connected to most of the tall buildings were bright advertisement signs. Each had a different color, a different message to tell. Some advertised candy bars while others advertised the famous turbo duels which the Synchro Dimension was known extremely well for. Neo smiled as he witnessed the sheer mass of it, and with little hesitation, walked out of the station to join the people walking across.

Neo walked down the endless sidewalk, he was a little nervous, constantly saying, "Excuse me" and "Sorry" as he strolled through with his suitcase following behind him. As Neo walked, he looked at each and every bright sign, whether it was an advertisement or a store sign. Neo was very overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the place. He had been to many cities before, but Neo Domino stood out above all the rest just in its size. Neo then remembered that he wasn't there merely to sightsee but rather to attend an academy.

Neo continued to walk, but while he paid attention to where he was going, he took short breaks to pull out his phone and look at where he was meant to be. The placement test would take place at what was once the Kaiba dome but had since been changed to the Kaiba Convention Center. Neo looked at the address that shined on the phone. He maneuvered his thumb and highlighted the address in order for the phone to pull it up in his maps app. He quickly gathered that the convention center wasn't all that far, only a mere fifteen minutes away by walking, but then Neo noticed that the placement test didn't even start till two o'clock and it was only 12:30. Still, however, Neo felt like it wouldn't hurt to be early, and put the directions for the convention center in.

Neo continued to walk, this time, however, Neo was walking with a destination in mind. He took a few turns when the directions called for it, but most of the time, all the directions called for was just to walk straight. In just a mere ten minutes, Neo took a right turn and then immediately saw the dome in the distance. Even for how old the building was compared to the buildings surrounding it, it still looked just as modern and new as the others. The whole dome was covered in glass, and even from that distance, its bright hallways inside could be seen. However, immediately after the sight of the dome, the sound of tons of chatter towards his right, caused Neo to stop and change his focus.

Next to Neo was a small park. It featured lush grass and trees that went on for what appeared to be a mile. Nearby in this park, however, was a small wooden booth. There were many people there, some that were waiting in line for something, but most were sitting at the wooden tables which were propped up next to the booth. Neo looked at the people, all of them were carrying or had ice cream on the table. Based off of this, Neo knew that it was some kind of ice cream booth. Neo didn't normally have ice cream, but in this situation, it appealed to Neo as he hadn't eaten much for breakfast, and was craving anything at this point.

Taking a detour, Neo turned right again and headed to the booth. He passed by the chairs of people and then looked at the front of the stand. It had a picture of ice cream on the left side of it with the words "Central Creamery" written in bright blue following the picture of the ice cream. On the bottom of the title was the advertisement that this creamery was the "Home of the Synchro Dimension Famous Blended Ice Cream!" Neo didn't quite understand what they meant by blended ice cream, but nonetheless, Neo got in line. There weren't many people in front of him, and as such Neo didn't have to wait long until the man running the booth said towards Neo, "Can I help you over there?" Hearing this, Neo walked to the front and faced the man. He was seemingly in his twenties as he was surely an adult, but he didn't appear very old. His brown hair was held back from coming down onto his forehead by his black visor which matched his uniform.

"So, what can I get for you today boss?" The man said cheerfully.

"Hmm," Neo said briefly as he gathered up his order in his mind "I'll have the Blended Ice Cream." He said, eager to try it.

"Coming right up!" He said as he briefly pushed the screen of the cash register and then left his post to the back of the booth and shortly came back to the front with the ice cream. To Neo's surprise it wasn't blended at all, rather the reason why it was called blended was that there were 2 parts of it. On the left side of the scoop of ice cream was a vanilla half, and the other side featured a chocolate side. These two sides met at the middle, where they seemingly blended together, forming one united flavor in the middle.

"That'll be $3.50," The cashier said as he pressed more buttons on the register.

Neo took out his wallet from his jeans pocket and opened it. He shifted through his money and then took out four one dollar bills. He then handed it to the cashier with the response of, "Keep the change."

"Don't like carrying coins, huh?" The cashier asked as he took the dollar bills.

"Nah, they're a hassle to store in my opinion", Neo replied

"Yeah, it's hard to find places for them sometimes," the cashier said. He then pressed one last button on the register and then it began to print out the receipt. The cashier handed it to Neo and then said, "Enjoy the ice cream."

"Thanks", Neo replied as gave a smile, picked up the ice cream cup and walked with his suitcase to the side of the booth, where he picked up a small white plastic spoon. Neo then decided to go to the open table and sit down, as he did have some time to spare. He let go of the suitcase as he sat and placed the cup of ice cream down on the table. Neo first took the spoon and took a portion of the vanilla side. He put it in his mouth and began to taste it. It was very rich vanilla, quite good in taste, however, it was just that, vanilla. It seemed to almost lack something. After that, Neo decided to try the other side as he was curious as to how the chocolate tasted. This too was very good, however, unlike the vanilla, the chocolate also had bits of chocolate chunks as well. The chunks were hard and it caught Neo by surprise when he was eating the chocolate side. After eating both, Neo decided to try the middle to see how the blended side was. He took a portion of the center and put it in his mouth. The taste was astounding. Each side, the rich vanilla, and the rough chocolate played perfectly with each other. The center was great. Neo, as much as he did want to savor it, began to eat hastily as he didn't want to waste any more time. After the amazing ice cream, Neo got up and grabbed the suitcase once more. Now satisfied, Neo's mind was much clearer and he began to walk to the dome.

After another five minutes, Neo came face to face with the dome. The dome looked even bigger than it did when he looked at it from a distance. Neo looked forward. There was one last long passageway towards the tall glass door of the dome. In front of this door, however, was a small table with a few people seated there. Neo looked at his phone while he walked through the final walkway. He was still quite early, yet despite that, there were already quite a few people here. Many teens were standing in the front, waiting for their turn to check in. Neo got in this line, while it appeared very long at first, the people running the booth were very efficient, and as such, Neo managed to reach the front within fifteen minutes. As soon as the person in front finished, the lady called Neo to her.

Neo approached the desk. The lady, wearing jeans and a blue shirt that had the Duel Academy logo on it, quickly asked Neo, "Name?"

"Neo Yuki, Ma'am," Neo replied quickly

The lady upon hearing this name began to shift through her papers which lied neatly on the desk. She nearly went through all of them, this was more than likely because the list was in alphabetical order, in which Neo would naturally be on the bottom. 

"Ah here we go," she said as she spotted his name. The lady then picked up a pen which was placed in front of her and crossed out a portion of the paper. "Since you're a freshman, you need to do the placement test, so let me get your placement test papers." The lady then said as she motioned her hands towards another set of papers and began sifting through them. She then pulled out a sheet of paper and then picked up a brochure which was in its own separate pile. She handed them to Neo and then said, "Your duel number is four hundred and nineteen, when they call you, head down to the dueling floor, while you wait, feel free to watch duels or talk to others. I also gave you a brochure, make sure to look at it; it has information on how to get your student I.D as well as info on the various other rules in duel academy." She then looked down at Neo's suitcase, "If you'd like, we can go ahead and take that for you, and we'll drop it off at your dorm once it's decided."

"Oh, sure", Neo replied as he pulled the suitcase towards him. Upon hearing that, one of the other people running the table walked around and took the suitcase from Neo.

"Alright, you're good to go, I hope you have a good day", the lady said monotonously

Neo gave a brief nod and then walked around the desk and into the dome. It was nice to have the suitcase finally gone, but now Neo had the papers to drag along. Upon entering the dome, Neo spotted a black bench empty and then proceeded to sit down and get himself situated. Despite most of the excitement being inside the stadium, there were still many people around the halls, mostly chatting and looking at each other's papers. Neo first looked at the blank white paper, it was a ticket with basic information he'd written down when he applied as well as a barcode, more than likely it was for the placement test. Upon thinking this, Neo remembered the big issue. The placement test! What was he going to do? He had just walked over to the dome without even thinking about the placement test! Was he really going to duel? Neo hadn't dueled in years, nor had he any experience with the deck which Jaden gave him. Neo pulled out the deck. He stared at it as he thought about it. Did he really have to duel? Could he even duel without a duel disk? That was another issue. Neo had no duel disk, and without one, he couldn't duel even if he wanted to. Neo then came to the conclusion that they more than likely had rentals. Still, however, does he really have to duel?

Suddenly a beep from the speakers hung across the hall snapped Neo out of that thought. "Attention all Duel Academy students! please come to the stadium as we will soon be pausing our duels in order to briefly celebrate the birthday of our number one ranked duelist and National Champion, Allie Yuki!" At the sound of this, everyone from the halls began to excitedly race into the stadium. Neo, however, didn't move as he came to the realization that it was also Allie's birthday. Neo put his deck back into his pocket and stood up. He needed to do something. While it was true that they had not talked in years, she should still be recognized at least.

Neo quickly pulled out his phone and began to scroll through his lists of contacts. He figured he should at least call, even if she doesn't pick up, it'd still be worth at least saying it. As soon as he found Allie's number Neo put his phone towards his left ear as he listened to the phone ring.

The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity until the ringing stopped and the sound of the phone connection was heard. Neo half-smiled at this sound. She appeared to have his number still.

However, this thought was soon relinquished as the sound of Allie was then heard saying, "Hey it's Allie! Sorry, I'm not available right now. Please leave a message, and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you!" Neo gave a sigh, she must be busy celebrating, or she didn't have his number still and just let the phone ring. Either way, Neo felt like he should still leave a message, as the phone beep indicating that it was now recording the message.

"Hey Allie, it's uh, me, Neo. I'm sure you're probably busy, but I, uh, just wanted to say Happy Birthday. I hope you're having fun doing whatever you're doing right now." Neo gave a short chuckle, "Sorry, I uh, don't have a present for you, I probably would've gotten you a new stuffed animal or something, but I'm kinda broke right now. Anyways, I need to go, keep doing what you're doing. Oh, and uh try to call dad too if you have free time. He really misses you, and he'd probably be really happy if you called. Alright, bye."

Neo hung up the phone and sighed. The halls were now empty, pretty much silent, save for the muffled sound of cheering in the stadium. Neo put his phone back into his pocket and began to walk through the hallway. He then soon came across a set of stairs and proceed to climb them, putting each foot on the white steps. As he reached the top and came to another hallway, the sounds of chatter became louder and louder.

Neo walked down the hallway until he came across a closed door which led to the stadium. Neo turned and put his hand on the silver handle. He pulled the door and instantly he was met with the sound of chatter, no longer muffled and all booming in his ears. He walked into the stadium. There were a short number of people on the top walkway, most of them were standing by the edge of the walkway and looking down at the duels. Neo walked passed a few of these people until he reached an opening in the rails which led down to the seats. He began down the staircase down and looked around. There were rows and rows just full of people. Most of them were wearing uniforms already indicating that they were upperclassmen just waiting for all the duels to end so they can hop on the plane and go to the academy. However, there were some wearing common clothing, these were clearly the freshmen, as none of them had their uniforms yet. Neo then spotted an open blue seat in the row on his right and then walked through the people sitting in order to get to the free seat. Once getting through the wall of people Neo eventually reached his seat and sat down.

Naturally, Neo's eyes came down and looked at the field. There were a few duels going on, but it seemed that most of the people watching were focused on the one in the center. On that field, there was, of course, the proctor as well as a boy each standing in front of each other behind giant monsters. The boy had black hair which was completely messed up. Each portion seemed to go in a different direction. He was wearing a navy shirt which appeared to have writing on it, but from the angle of view, Neo could not see. He was also wearing black jeans that seemed to almost match the hair color completely.

"Well Princeton, things don't seem to be looking all that good for you," The proctor said as if he was above the boy.

At the sound of this, the crowd began to murmur. "Princeton? As in like Chazz Princeton? That Pro Duelist?" One of the girls in the row Neo was in said loudly.

"Yeah, I think that guy's his son or something." Another guy in Neo's row added.

"Woah no way, talk about a family legacy," the girl said. "If he's got Chazz as his father, then he must be good!"

Neo groaned at this statement. Statements like that always got him riled up. They were what had initially caused Neo to stray away from dueling in the first place. Being only know for your family's legacy was annoying to him, and if there was anything Neo knew about himself, that was it.

The son of Chazz gave a brief laugh, "You're right", he admitted. "I have nothing on my field and you have two powerful monsters, you also have 2900 life points, which is astounding compared to my poultry 800. However!" The crazy-haired boy proclaimed. "What you don't know, is that I have a little bit of an Ace up my sleeve!"

"Oh ha ha," the proctor said sarcastically. "Do you really have an ace in your hand, or are you just trying to make a pun out of your name?"

"Both, as a matter of fact", Ace said confidently. "Cause in my hand, I have Dark Hole!" He said as he inputted the card into his duel disk. The card appeared and at the sight of it, many in the stands gasped at astonishment. "I was going to explain this to you, but instead, I'll just let it do its thing and you can see for yourself" Ace said as black vortex suddenly showed itself, sucking in the two monsters guarding the proctor, destroying them, and then just as fast as it showed up, the vortex disappeared.

"Alright, so you have an opportunity now." The proctor said, smiling. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to finish you off, that's what!" Ace replied with confidence as he placed another card on the field. "And I'll do it by summoning my V-Tiger Jet!" Instantly, the yellow tiger jet appeared as it zoomed around the stadium briefly and then stopped at its monster zone. (Level:4, Atk:1600 Def:1800). "Then, I'll activate my spell card, Double Summon!" Ace said as he once again placed a card on his disk. "Thanks to double summon, I can also summon out W-Wing Catapult!" The monster once again came to life, as a blue carrier appeared next to the Tiger Jet (Lv:4, Atk:1300, Def:1500). 

Ace smiled, "Sorry, friend, but it looks like this is the end of the line for you!" he said with pride as he called both of his monsters to attack. Both of the machines shot from their positions and like a missile, zoomed towards the proctor. Once the monsters made contact, a small explosion of smoke went off, causing the end of the duel. Once the smoke cleared, the proctor was seen once again, this time smiling as both of his hands were down in defeat.

"I'll admit Ace Princeton. You got game." The proctor announced proudly. "You're Obelisk Blue material no doubt. Enjoy the dorms"

"Yes!" Ace said as he put his fist in the air and the crowd began to cheer. There were many comments on how skilled Ace was in Neo's rows but Neo ignored most of them. It was true that Ace had some skill, but how he won was more of a luck situation. It was almost like the pieces of Exodia, he had so happened to have had the pieces he needed to end the duel. With even one less card, that could not have been pulled off.

Then, Neo was snapped out of his thoughts once again as the speakers came back on once again this time it had a new message, "Now calling testee 419 to the floor. Again, 419 please come to the floor please"

In an instant, Neo's thoughts went wild. He had forgotten the whole situation and now he was here, very unprepared to make the decision. Neo began to twiddle his thumbs as he thought. Time was now ticking for Neo. It was now or never. Can Neo do it? Should he do it?  _ Tick. _ Is it even worth doing if he just knows he's going to fail? Still, wouldn't it be worth it just to go out and try?  _ Tick. _ NO, no, he mustn't, even if he won what would that accomplish him? All it would award Neo was more of those, "Oh, of course, he won, he's a Yuki." comments.  _ Tick. _ The speaker called to Neo once again, but Neo wasn't paying attention. He still couldn't decide. Time is really going now. Do it! Stand Up!  _ Tick. _ There wasn't much time left! He needed to do this!  _ Tick. _ Doing this won't give him anything, however! Why should he do it, if all it was going to award him was pain?  _ Tick. _

The speaker's voice rang once more, "Testee 419, please come to the dueling floor!" Neo's focus then fell onto the people around him. They were murmuring once again. "Heh. This guy must be a real slacker." "I'd hate to miss such an important duel as this" See? They're already discussing it, it won't matter if you go out there'll still be the chatter. There will always be chatter.  _ Tick. _ It won't go away. It won't change. The snarky comments, the backlash, it'll always be there. Just go and do it!

"Now calling testee 420 to the floor. Again, 420 please come to the floor please", the speaker said as Neo sighed. It was over. He had made his decision, and it was final. There was no going back from it. Even after all the duels were over and Neo was now on the bus heading towards the airport to the island, he could still hear the people. The people, murmuring like they always do. It was a voice that never got out of his mind. Never.


	4. Welcome To Duel Academy

The sound of the constant talk between students as well as the fidgeting of Neo’s classmate sitting next to him caused Neo to awake from his slumber. The first thing Neo saw was the white plastic back of a plane seat. He was still on the plane which he boarded seemingly an eternity ago. He had been asleep for quite a while. Neo turned his head to the left briefly to look at the window that stood beside him. It was now bright outside, indicating that it was now the next day. Neo then slowly moved his head to see the people on the plane with him. The person next to him was a young man with dirty blond hair. He wore a yellow tee shirt with the words “Ra Yellow”, written in white onto it as well as dark blue jeans, similar to the ones which Neo was wearing. He was talking to a group of girls who were wearing an obelisk blue uniform. Neo didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying, but the casual feel of the conversation told Neo that these people knew each other. Neo slowly turned back around and faced the back side of the chairs in front of him for no real general purpose other than to not look like an eavesdropper. Neo thought about the events of the day before. He had been thinking about it ever since it even occurred. The overarching question that was in Neo’s mind was whether not doing the placement test was worth it or not. Neo obviously knew the consequences, he would be put into base classes, but this part he didn’t care about. It was only his freshmen year, and taking base classes is not considered all that bad, he would just have to work from the ground up. 

Another consequence was that he would most certainly be placed in the dorm Slifer Red, which Jaden had explained to Neo in his various stories that it was considered the worst of the three. Due to this, it was only natural that he would be placed there with him not even participating in the placement test. Thinking about this, Neo looked down at his waist, it still bore Jaden’s uniform, well, Neo’s uniform now. This uniform was old for sure, but perhaps it could pass the dress code still, at least if Neo wore this, he wouldn’t have to wear the modern Slifer red uniform which he had seen in the halls yesterday. Unlike the old uniform, it was more like a coat rather than a jacket, the back of it went all the way down to the back of the knees. The front of the coat shared a similar style as the old jacket, but it featured big black buttons that ran down to the waist on one side of it, rather than the single button on the top of the old uniform. This style looked significantly stupider compared to the uniform in Neo eyes. Both actually looked stupid, but Neo figured he could bear with the old uniform until he could save up for the T-Shirt version of it similar to the boy’s that was sitting next to Neo. 

These consequences Neo didn’t mind all that much, the only problem with his decision would be that he would just have to keep it on the down-low, especially with his father. Everyone would be either laughing or disappointed if it came to light that Neo didn’t like dueling and didn’t participate in the placement test. This wouldn’t be all that hard to keep secret, as Neo’s been hiding this part of himself from Jaden for years now, Neo would have to just come up with a story to not give away what he did in the placement test. Neo once again looked back up and sat up straight on the seat. He didn’t completely agree with his decision but it was now in the past, he would just have to deal with the aftermath.

Suddenly a beep from the speaker was heard hung to a part of the plane. At the sound of this, the students chattering quickly became silent as everyone on the plane listened, eager to hear the pilot’s message.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at the stop.”, the pilot announced proudly. “If you look to your right, you will see our destination, Academy Island” At the sound of the pilot’s statement, Neo, as well as many other students, looked at their nearest window to see the island. The island was relatively small, only a small portion of it was the academy itself, with its massive buildings that could easily be seen from the airplane. The rest of the island, however, contained what seemed to be an inactive volcano. It was absolutely massive in size as it made the academy dorms and main building look like an absolute joke when compared to it. Neo looked at it in silence while many of the other students gasped in awe, but Neo was just as in awe as the rest of them. After a brief pause in order to allow the students to view the island, the pilot continued his speech, “When this plane comes to a complete stop, please exit the plane in a calm fashion and head inside the office which should be directly to your left from where you exited. In there, you will get your schedule as well as your dorm room key. On behalf of the Duel Academy Flight Crew, we hope you enjoy your school year.” 

As soon as the speech ended, the chatter started back up, now much louder due to the excitement of the situation. There were now sounds of people beginning to put all of their stuff back into their carry-on bags. Hearing all of this, Neo simply just pulled out his phone. He scrolled through until he came across an application that he had installed on his phone yesterday before the plane left. It was the Duel Academy app that the brochure Neo received had told him to download. He opened the app. It showed a menu of various options. The was a map, which would come in handy at least for the first week, a list of services and restaurants they had on campus, another list of rules and regulations, a section where you could see highlights of duels that occurred recently, and an option that pulled up Neo’s ID card. Neo looked at it. It had a picture on it that he took when he went to do the multiple choice test. Neo on the picture had an almost reluctant smile. For the love of him, Neo couldn’t remember him ever doing that. He just hoped that it wasn’t the picture that was going to show up on the yearbook. On the ID card, Neo’s suspicions were confirmed about his dorm as on the bottom of the White ID card it read “Slifer Red” in bold red text. The one thing that confused Neo was a number which was placed on top of the screen in the main menu of the app. The number read 13,754 and on the top of it, the two letters D and P were placed. Neo was confused what this number was, but it was clearly a ranking of some sorts. He soon dismissed the question of the mysterious ranking, however, as he figured it would be explained to him sometime in the future.

Neo began to feel himself descending, meaning that the plane was starting to land. He put the phone in his pocket and looked outside the window. They were indeed going downward, and slowly but surely, the plane began to fall onto the black runway, and slowly began to slow down, allowing Neo to see the environment around him better. He was on the runway of course, but surrounding it was a small forest, which contained trees which stood tall in a straight line, almost replicating that of a wall. Behind the plane, however, was the end of the island, with nothing but the ocean blue for miles upon miles. Neo looked up from his window, there were seagulls flying around the place, perhaps searching for a crumb on the ground to fight viscously over. It was exactly what Neo had expected from academy island. A calm location featuring bright blue skies and vast oceans, with nothing else but itself standing in the ocean. 

Once the plane came to a full stop, Neo and everyone else took off their seatbelts. Everyone stood up and began to create a line in the middle of the walkway in an attempt to quickly get out. Neo waited a bit until he found an opening in the line and quickly slid in. The line moved quickly, and soon enough, Neo began to exit the plane, going down the steps of the exit cautiously, until he touched the blacktop of the runway. Neo moved out of the way quickly and walked into the office, which like the pilot had said was to his left. He entered the glass doors of the building and waited in yet another line. The line was once again very quick as everyone was still anxious, and soon enough, Neo reached the front desk. The second he came to the front of the wooden desk, the lady behind Neo asked him for his ID card. Neo quickly took out his phone and showed it to the lady. She took a barcode scanner and scanned it. She then looked at the old computer on the desk and began to click some buttons. An old printer which was on the other side of the desk began to make noises as it printed a paper. While it was doing this, the lady pulled open one of the desk’s drawers and after sifting through some things in there, pulled out a small brass key as well as a neatly folded Slifer red Uniform. She then took the freshly printed paper from the printer and handed both the key, the uniform, and paper to Neo.

“Here’s your schedule”, she said monotonously. “Class starts at 9:30 sharp tomorrow, please make your way to the stadium in the main building, we’re having a freshmen orientation in there soon. You’ll get a full tour of everything. Also, make sure to put that uniform on when you get the chance, they’re required during school hours. 

“Thanks”, Neo quietly responded as he put the key and his phone in his pocket and began to walk away with the uniform in his right hand, but then he quickly walked back to the desk and asked. “Oh wait, I was going to ask, is it alright if I just wear this uniform instead?”, he said as he pointed to the uniform tied to his waist.

The lady took a glance at it, “Hmm, well, I suppose so, but whether you’re allowed to wear it on your waist like that or not is beyond me. Ask your dorm leader and see what they say”, she said a little confused about the question.

“Okay, thank you”, Neo said, thankful that he wouldn’t have to wear the embarrassment of a uniform that was the new one in his hand. Neo finally walked outside the office to be greeted with the bright main plaza area of the school. 

It featured a bright concrete pathway from the office to a square-shaped center. The center had many bright red benches on the side as well as some greenery, though not much. Right in the center had a pillar in the center with some writing on it which Neo couldn’t see from where he was at. There were many students here too, a few of them were looking at their schedules, while others were taking pictures with each other, most likely to brag about where they were on social media. At the back of the square was another large concrete pathway, this one lead to the large tan building, which was built a while ago, but still looked relatively modern. This was Neo’s destination.

Neo began to walk to the building. As he walked through the pathway and the square, he gave brief looks at the people around him. Most of them were wearing their uniforms already, which made Neo stand out from the crowd quite a bit already. This wasn’t a good sign in Neo’s mind. He looked down briefly at the uniform once more. Perhaps he would have to wear it, after all, just to make sure he didn’t stand out as much as he did now. 

Once Neo reached the main building, he took a pause to look at it from the outside. It was massive, to think that his classes would be in such a building was a crazy thought. Neo quickly went inside. It had a similar aesthetic to the convention center, only the outside wasn’t completely glass. He noticed many other students there, some were sitting around, but most seemed to be headed to the auditorium for the orientation. Neo trailed behind a random group who were going to the stadium as Neo had no idea where it was and it seemed like the group knew. They walked through a long hallway, while they were doing so, Neo looked at the several blue metal doors, they presumably led to classrooms as well as bright red lockers which were placed in between the door. Eventually, the group reached the end of the white-tiled hallway and came across two double doors, one on the left side of the opening of the hallway and one on the other. The group proceeded to take the left door, but Neo took the right, as he knew this must’ve been where the auditorium was. When he entered, he was greeted with an absolutely massive auditorium. There were rows upon rows of red seats all of which were angled to look down at the main stage area, which was currently closed up by curtains. Many freshmen were already there as the orientation was planned to begin in no less than a few minutes now.

Neo walked down the aisle and found an empty row. Neo walked through it and took his place right in the center of it. This row wasn’t empty for long, however, as several groups of students soon covered every single seat, completely surrounding Neo. Suddenly, the lights in the auditorium began to dim. The presentation was starting. All of the chatter once again stopped. First, there was a person who began to speak from inside the control booth of the auditorium. “Ladies and Gentlemen”, the person calmly said. He had clearly practiced this speech beforehand. “Please welcome the Principal of Duel Academy, Alexis Rhodes Yuki to the stage”

A monotonous clap from the audience rang out as Neo’s mother whom he hadn’t seen in three years now came from the left side of the stage. She walked into the middle of the stage and looked up at the thousands of freshmen students. She looked practically the same Neo had remembered her from all those years back. She had short dirty blond hair, similar to that of Allie’s but slightly lighter. Unlike Allie’s hair, however, Alexis’s hair only came down to her shoulder until it was cut off. Neo had seen pictures of her with very long hair, but for all of Neo’s life, she had it short. She wore a maroon duel academy coat, similar to that of the uniform as well as maroon heels which matched perfectly in color to her coat. As she stood there, she took a look around at the crowd and took a sigh right into the microphone.

“5,416”, she said as the room fell silent in an instant. “That’s how many new people are here today representing the next generation of duel academy students, and each one of for you is different. Some are natural-skilled duelists, while others here are mediocre, dare I say, below average duelists. But no matter the skill, no matter the origin, it is every teacher’s goal in this academy to make each and every one of you, masters at the art. These years are not going to be easy, let me tell you that. You will struggle, no matter how good you proclaim to be, but once you overcome the trials that we have set, you will be some of the most elite duelists out there. We will draw out every bit of potential you have, and with our guidance, you too will be one of our accomplished alumni. I have many other statements to say, but for now, I will simply end it with: I hope that you overcome those challenges, and graduate this school with a smile on your face. May your draws be full of luck, my students”, she said with a stern tone. The students gave another monotonous clap. 

“I am now pleased to bring out to the stage, one of our most acclaimed student who I’m very sure you know”, Alexis then said. “Please welcome, the number one ranked duelist in the academy, Allie Yuki”

At the sound of this, everyone cheered and clapped with excitement, it had seemed like they were way more interested in what Allie had to say, rather than Alexis. From stage left, Allie came out, walking casually with a smile, looking at the audience and waving to them. She then faced Alexis, who handed her the microphone and then exited stage right. She turned around to face the audience and moved the microphone closer to her mouth. 

“First off, I just wanna say something really important”, Allie said sternly which caused everyone to fall silent. “Congratulations on making it here guys!”,Allie said excitedly. Everyone in the audience began to cheer once again, then shortly fell silent, eager to see what Allie had to say next. “It really is difficult to get here, but let me assure you that your hard work as not for nothing. Duel Academy is such an amazing place. You get to meet so many awesome people here, all of them super nice and always will to help someone out. Sometimes I still get astounded that I get to be at such an amazing place. Duel Academy is what made me such a skilled duelist, and it will make you one too!”,everyone cheered once again. 

“Now I was told to write this super long speech, motivating you guys, but when I sat down to write, I had my pen and paper, I just kept thinking to myself, ‘You know what’s the most motivating thing to do? A duel!’, so, who in the stands would like to duel me? For funzzies of course”. 

As soon as this was heard, an uproar began, many people shot up their hand, eager to duel a National Champion. Neo watched as Allie took her right hand and began to make a pointer finger. She smiled as she moved her hand across the stage. Moving back and forth, like a pendulum. Neo followed the finger, tracing every movement of the tiny dot in his eyes. He was almost hypnotized by it, as it moved back in forth, causing his eyesight to become almost blurry. Finally, the finger stopped.

“How about you there?”, she said with joy. Neo attempted to focus his eyesight, and as it focused on where she was pointing, he instantly regretted ever focusing on it. He didn’t want to believe who she was pointing at. It was him.

Neo gave a confused look as he pointed at himself looking at Allie. “Yes, you right there in the black shirt, come on doooown!”, Allie said trying to mimic a game show host. Was this a joke? Why had she picked him? There were literally 5,415 other students she could have landed on, and she chose him?!? Why? Was this to expose him as her brother? Was it to be able to talk to him after such a long time? Neo couldn’t figure out why. Allie said once more, “C’mon! Don’t be shy!” Reluctantly, Neo stood up, placing the new Slifer red uniform he had received on the seat he was in and began slowly making his way back to the aisle as the people at his row looked at him in shock and confusion. It was quiet now, everyone’s focus was on Neo as he nervously walked down the aisle. 

He heard the voices again, “Who’s that guy?” “A slifer red huh? Heh, too bad he’s gonna get destroyed, I almost feel bad for him” “This should be entertaining to see this guy get crushed.” Neo picked up the pace, now speed walking in an attempt to get away from the voices. He made way to the center and went up the staircase. He looked around briefly as he walked to the center of the wooden stage. 

Him and Allie’s eyes met each other’s. “Hi”, Neo said, still confused as to what’s going on.

“Hello”, Allie said formally. What was up with the formal greeting? Was she nervous talking to him after so long? That wasn’t really Allie’s personality. Allie once again began to speak into the microphone. “Alright! Can you tell me what your name is?”, she said as she motioned the microphone to face Neo’s mouth. What? What? What is your name? Why did she ask that? She knows who he is right? _ Right? _

“Umm, I uh kinda need your name”, Allie said confused, as Neo was taking a while to answer. _ She didn’t know!  _ She didn’t know who he was! Neo fell into a state of craziness. How could she forget? Was he really that forgettable that she managed to forget her own brother?

Neo faced Allie “Sorry, I uh, don’t duel”, he said hastily towards Allie, but the microphone still caught the statement as the words boomed into the auditorium.

“Huh?”, Allie said confused. The audience was in confusion as well, “What did he say?” “He doesn’t duel? And he’s in a duel academy?” “That’s a lie right? How did he manage to get in then?” “What a piece of trash, he doesn’t even deserve to be in slifer red”. Neo was getting more panicky as he heard the audience. He turned to Allie once again, “I’m leaving”, he said hastily as he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the deck Jaden had given him. “Here”, he said as he forcefully put the cards in Allie’s free hand. “Happy Birthday”, Neo said as he walked back down the stairs slowly and then in a sprint as he reached the aisle, afraid to hear more voices. “Hey! Wait! Who are you?”,Allie said in the microphone still very confused on what had happened as Neo sprinted out of the room and shut the auditorium door. 

Neo sprinted down the hall. She really had forgotten him. Neo was completely forgotten in Allie’s mind, Neo started slowing down and then began to slowly walk in the empty halls of the building. Not only that, but now everyone had an eye on him. He was the piece of trash student who doesn’t even duel. That was who he was now. There was no changing first impressions. Neo shouldn't have said that, but in a ditch effort to get off the stage,he said those words. Despite all of the other things weighing on Neo’s mind, Neo still couldn’t shake off what Allie had said. He really was a family disgrace. So forgettable that his own sister doesn’t even remember who he is. Neo held back the few tears he was producing, he didn’t want to give the security a water show who were most likely watching from the security cameras. Neo stopped suddenly in the middle of the endless hallway and looked down at his uniform, still tied there, like a name tag, always showing him who he is and who he was meant to be. Neo frustratingly untied the uniform and looked at it once more before throwing it on the white-tiled floor and then walking further down the long hallway, leaving his family’s legacy, behind. 


	5. Take Your Seats

Neo took a deep breath as he placed his warm left hand onto the cold silver door handle of the large academy building. He closed his eyes briefly, in an attempt to calm himself down, at least until he was alone once again. There was no way he could walk out there crying, he needed to last for a while, and this would be his only time to prepare himself. As his eyes saw the darkness of his eyelids, Neo absorbed what few teardrops he had left. He took slow, deep breaths as he attempted to push the events of the orientation out of his mind.

In.. out. In...and out.

Neo opened up his hazel eyes. The glass door came into focus once more. Neo quickly pulled the glass door, and the heat of the August morning came seeping into the halls. Neo stepped out of the building and walked, he calmly looked around the pathway as he headed back to the square. Students were still up and about, walking around, chatting amongst each other, some were even dueling in the fields. Neo didn't pay much attention to the people, afraid that he'd see them looking at him, he had no uniform on, and thus, stood out like a fish out of water. Neo looked forward, blocking his view of the people around him.

When he reached the main square however, he was forced to view the duel directly in front of him. This one had a small crowd who were all watching the action intensely. Neo, unlike the crowd, was not interested and went around the duel, he tried to not bring attention to himself, walking in a calm, but quick pace, looking down but his fast pace quickly was stopped as he bumped into somebody. The boy gave a loud "Ack!" as he fell to the floor, his cards scattering on the floor as everyone suddenly looked at Neo, he had accidentally bumped into one of the duelists, causing the projected monsters to disappear, effectively ending the duel. The crowd groaned at the disappointing conclusion, but then soon dispersed out into their own individual friend groups. Neo hastily looked at the individual he bumped into. It was Ace, now in an obelisk blue uniform. He must've ditched the orientation as well, solely to duel it seemed. Neo put his hand towards Ace, "Sorry, are you okay?" Neo said out of courtesy, but all he really wanted to do was to get out of the square. Ace looked up at Neo a tad confused and then giving an angry face, getting up by himself.

"I'm fine." Ace angrily responded as he moved his arms across his body in an attempt to get off the dirt. "You need to watch where you're going."

"Sorry…" Neo repeated as that was all he could really respond with.

"Hey, are you alright?" Chimed a girl's voice as Neo began to hear footsteps. Neo quickly turned towards the direction of the voice. There was a girl there heading towards Neo and Ace's direction. She had bright sky blue hair which was done in a somewhat messy ponytail, her green eyes gave a look of concern as she walked over towards Ace. She wore a Ra yellow vest as well as light blue jeans which were ripped on the knee. She also carried a duel disk with cards placed upon it. She was who Ace was dueling no doubt.

"Yeah, however, it looks like our duel's canceled." Ace responded turning his attention to the girl.

"Yeah, but you probably would've won." The girl calmly replied. She then turned her attention to Neo, and at first, she looked at him in confusion, as if she was trying to figure out who he was. This made Neo also confused. Did he know her? "Hey, wait a second!" The girl said in surprise, seemingly figuring out who he was. "Woah hey, Neo! Long time no see!" The girl suddenly said in a friendly tone. Neo took a second to look at the girl again until he too slightly jumped at the coincidence. Light blue hair, green eyes, ponytail, friendly tone, those were the traits of Melina Truesdale, the daughter of Syrus Truesdale, one of Jaden's old friends. He hadn't seen her in a while, Neo thought back. Yes, it must've been a few years back, at a family party where he had last seen her.

"Oh, hey!" Neo said after figuring out Melina's identity. "Yeah, I didn't recognize you at first. Small world."

"Yeah, I guess so," Melina said. "How've you been?"

"I've been alright, just been doing school, living with my old man, till' I got here a couple of days back," Neo said.

"I'm sorry, do you know him?" Ace said slightly confused.

"Oh, yeah this is an old friend of mine, Neo." Melina responded, "He's a bit of a klutz."

Neo chuckled a bit, "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Well then, Neo." Ace said looking squarely at him, "I'm not exactly satisfied with that last duel, you wanna go?"

"Yeah how about it Neo?" Melina joined in. "He's actually really good."

"Nah, maybe not today, I'm still kinda tired, so I was gonna head to my dorm and just sleep," Neo said, attempting to make excuses to why he couldn't duel.

"Hpmh," Ace responded. "Alright then, I guess I'll just have to find someone else then"

"Sorry, maybe next time," Neo said. "I'm gonna get going, nice seeing you again Melina," Neo said as he began to walk out of the plaza.

"See you later Neo!" Melina replied, smiling as she gave a wave goodbye. Neo gave a wave back and then finally escaped from the plaza.

Neo looked down as he walked, focusing on the concrete pathway as it transitioned to a dirt one. He was soon on the outer section of the island. When the coast was clear, Neo looked back up. He was walking across the pathway with a lush forest filled with astounding wildlife, hidden in its tall trees on the left. To his right was a large field with very tall grass, this area seemed to not have been tended to in a long time. It took Neo a bit longer till he actually saw another building. This one was similar to a run-down garage. Its metal structure was all rusty, it seemed to barely be holding the half-circular building up.

As Neo walked passed it, he looked back to catch the front of it. It had a couple of old windows placed on each side of the door. The door, however, contradicted the whole aesthetic of the run-down garage. It was a bright yellow, seemingly just painted recently. On its rusty doorknob, Neo saw a small, wooden sign hung onto it by a string. The sign had various letters in different colors, but from his distance, they couldn't be read. Neo found it to be curious, but he didn't wanna turn around, and instead, he turned his focus back to the pathway and continued along to his destination. According to the map in which he viewed earlier, he was nearing his dorm, Slifer Red. He was hoping he can get a hold of his dorm room early and just have a bit of privacy for the rest of the day.

After a little while longer of walking, Neo finally was the edge of the island in the distance. There was a small wooden dock that stretched out into the endless ocean. The left of the dock featured a small green patch of grass, protected from the heat by a massive tree, extending its shade onto the plants below it. Finally on the right of the dock was Neo's destination, an old building with a fresh coat of paint. It was a tan building with an orange roof, extending slightly past the building itself. The dorm had several wooden doors with windows placed on it. A row of them was on the ground, while another set was placed along a platform on top of the row on the bottom. The platform, ran down the building, until the end, which held a small staircase, leading up to the platform.

Neo stood still as he approached the building. This was it, his new home for the next year, it certainly wasn't the prettiest building the academy had, but Neo especially liked the ocean beside it. He found the sound of the ocean waves relaxing, and with it right next to his dorm, he was certain that he'd soon like this place. Neo walked closer to the building, walking past all of the doors and going around. On the other side was a large double door, this seemingly was the entrance to the main area. Neo grabbed the handle of the door and opened it.

Neo walked into the hall. There were several wooden tables, with plastic chairs all perfectly placed in a neat fashion. There were some utensils set up but not all of the tables had them. He walked around these tables, placing his feet on the blue tile of the hall when he heard something that caused him to stop. It was the muffled sound of some humming that caused Neo to realize that someone was in here. Neo began to walk towards the sound as he passed by the barren hall. As he drew closer, he realized that it was coming from another room, the one connected to the mess hall via a red wooden door on the right-hand corner of the room.

Neo approached the door slowly.

Once he reached it Neo took his hand and used it to pull the brass knob. He slowly opened the door as the sound of humming became more clear.

As Neo opened the door, he saw what was causing the noise. He was now in a small kitchen, and inside the room, there was a large burly man at the stove. He wasn't all that tall, but what made him massive was his sheer body mass, it wasn't fat, however. It was pure muscle. The man was mostly bald, with a few small strands of black hair. He was wearing khaki pants along with an almost pink dress shirt, which seemed to be stretching to the maximum. If he got any bigger, the shirt would surely rip off of him. Neo opened the door more so that he could walk in, he moved his left foot slowly onto the white tile of the kitchen. Neo made barely a sound, but the second he firmly placed his foot, the man jumped as he turned around, shouting "Who's There?"

Neo instantly jumped back into the other room, "Woah!" He instinctively yelped. Neo took a look at the man's face. He instantly noticed the man's large round nose as he saw the man took a deep sigh.

"You scared the crap outta me kid." The man calmly said.

Neo stepped fully into the room, facing the man, "Sorry, I should've knocked," he said as he moved his head down to face the ground.

"Nah, don't worry about it,'' the man said as he placed the spatula down on the counter and faced Neo once again, "You must be one of my kids huh?"

Neo looked up at the man, "Yeah, I'm uh Slifer Red", he replied, shocked that the man knew he was Slifer Red without his uniform. "You must be the dorm leader."

"Indeed I am", the man said as he took his right hand and moved it in front of him, in an attempt to initiate a handshake. "The name's Chumley Huffington. But you can call me Coach Chumley or just Coach is fine."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Neo," the still frightened boy said as he took his left hand and grabbed Chumley's right hand. His hands were firm, they were practically squeezing Neo's hands as they shook up and down briefly, and then each hand went back to their side.

"Well then Neo, since you're here early, I might as well give you your room now. He said as he walked across the kitchen and looked at a wooden board hung up to the wall. On the board were several hooks, all of which held keys, as well as had a white label on top of them. Chumley took his hand and move it around the wall. "Let's see here, Neo, Neo, Neo", he said until he came across one of the keys "Ah, here we go! Neo Yuki." He took the key on that hook off and kept it in his hand. He turned back around and walked toward Neo, but then he stopped halfway suddenly. "Hey, wait, your last name's Yuki?"

Neo instantly knew where this is going but he acted confused anyway, "Yeah. It is." He said as he tilted his head slightly. "Why do you ask?"

"You're not related to Jaden are you?" Chumley asked as he began to walk toward Neo.

There it was, the question he was waiting for.

Neo sighed as he looked back down at the tiled floor. Did he want to tell the truth? He could, but if he did then he would just open a whole new can of worms. "Nah, a common misconception. My family always gets asked that." Neo hastily bluffed. He figured if Allie thought he was just some nobody, then it was probably for the best if he kept the school believing that as well.

"Ah okay, though I do gotta say, you do kinda look like he did at about your age." Chumley chuckled, "Come on, I'll show you to your room real fast." He said as he motioned Neo to follow him. Neo silently obeyed as the two went outside of the dorm and up the staircase outside. They passed a few doors on the upper level before Chumley stopped and faced the door in front of him "This is it, go ahead and open it." He said as he stepped out of the way.

Neo approached the door, he took the key he was given and inserted it into the knob of the old red door. The door opened as Neo turned the key and pushed it open. Past the door was Neo's new home, the floor was wood similar to the flooring downstairs. The room had white walls. Aside from a bunk bed and a desk, both of which were wood, the dorm was empty. Neo walked in the empty room until he reached the center, as he looked around Chumley also walked in and joined Neo in the center. "Like it?" He asked "Speaking of Jaden, this was actually his and my dorm, well, your dorm now. Oh, and this is just your dorm, we have an odd number of kids this year, so it's just you in this one for now."

"Yeah…It's... Actually pretty roomy." Neo said as he looked around a bit more. He walked up to the desk and looked down at it. It was a bit dusty, but otherwise still in good condition. Next he moved to the window placed in between the desk and bed, it featured a nice view of the ocean as well as the small dock beyond the dorm. Neo put his hand on the window and pulled it upwards so that the window opened. Neo then put his arms on the small window overhang into his room, he took a deep breath of the ocean air. It was calming, Neo always loved going to the beach, but now it was right by his dorm. For all of the bad things that happened to him on this day, this one moment seemed to make it much better.

Chumley chuckled, "Like the ocean breeze?" He asked.

Neo put his arms back to his side, "Yeah it's great." He replied as he turned back around to face Chumley, "The room's nice."

"I'm glad you like it, kid," Chumley replied happily

Neo's face became straight once again as he walked away from the window and looked at the desk once again, he browsed across the wooden surface until something caught his eye. It was a picture, placed face up on the dusty desk, this photo was equally as dusty. Neo walked over towards the picture and picked it up, "What's this?" Neo inquired as he looked at the photo. It was a picture of a group of students posing in front of the dock which was right behind Neo's dorm.

"Oh, it's an old photograph of mine," Chumley replied as he approached Neo with the photograph. "It's a group picture, with Jaden and a bunch of my other friends."

"Oh really?" Neo asked as he looked at the photo once more and tried to see if he could find his dad. One by one, Neo looked at each student. They were all about his age, he looked at the faces, all smiling at the camera when he noticed one kid. He had a Slifer red vest on, similar to the one Jaden had given him, along with white jeans. It was not until Neo noticed the signature huge hair that he realized that it actually was Jaden. Neo's eyes widened a bit, sure, he's seen old pictures of his dad before, but they were practically all from Jaden's twenties. This was the first time Neo saw Jaden at his age. Aside from the hair, the face was strikingly similar to his. Jaden was a bit slimmer compared to Neo, but Neo seemed to be a bit taller than him. Nearby Jaden, Neo also spotted Alexis. Unlike Jaden, her hair was what threw Neo off at first. Her long hair conflicted Neo's image of her, with short hair, but then after soon recognizing the face, Neo remembered that she used to have long hair. Neo never imagined it was this long however, it almost came down to her legs. Neo thought if she let it grow for any longer, she would look like Rapunzel. "You're right." Neo calmly responded.

"Cool huh?" Chumley stated as he bent down to see the picture.

"Think you can find me?" Chumley asked Neo challenging him to the equivalent of a Where's Waldo challenge. Unlike his father and mother, Neo had no background of Chumley and thus couldn't find a student that matched his body shape.

"No, I have no idea," Neo said, giving up after looking back and forth.

"Heh," Chumley replied as if he expected this. "I'm right over here." He said pointing at one of the students.

Neo looked at the student and was shocked, unlike Chumley now, the Chumley of the past was very plump, they were almost unrecognizable together. "No way…" Neo said, completely stunned.

Chumley chuckled, "Yeah, that was me your age." He said not at all embarrassed by his old size. "I was like that for a while, but eventually I turned my life around and here I am!"

Neo looked at Chumley and compared the two images they were different but the facial features were a definite match. He couldn't believe just how much of a change he made. "Wow, that's incredible," Neo said bewildered.

"Heh, yeah I did pretty well." Chumley bragged. He then walked back toward the door and placed his bulky hands on the tiny doorknob. "I need to go finish up dinner, the grilled cheeses ain't gonna cook themselves! Come down for dinner around sixish, we're having a little celebratory thing tonight."

"Alright," Neo said as Chumley smiled and exited the room, leaving Neo alone once again. He sighed as he looked at Jaden's old picture. He thought about Jaden if he told him what had happened these past days, would he be okay with it? Probably not. Neo tried to find some way he could get out of this situation scot-free but to no avail. Maybe if he understood why he did it, maybe it'd be alright but then again, he probably wouldn't, none of Neo's family members seemed to have issues with pride, or self-confidence, this was Neo's problem alone to solve. How desperately he wanted to solve it, but he had no clue where to even begin, instead he stood there, in the empty room contemplating, wasting time thinking about things like this, like he always did.

Neo laid down on the bottom bunk of the bed next to him looked at the bottom of the bunk above. He closed his eyes, and let himself rest, as he drifted off to sleep, Neo felt the tears crawl out of his eyes once again, running down his face slowly until it hit the mattress.

Neo jumped out of bed quickly, he felt as if an eternity had passed. The room was now black, like an empty void he looked at the window outside, it was somewhat dark outside, the sky had an orange hue. It was either sunset or sunrise, either way, he must've passed out. He didn't get much sleep on the airplane so he supposed it made sense.

Neo took his phone out of his pocket, the phone lit up as the clock notified Neo that it was the next day at 8 o'clock in the morning. Neo sighed at the sheer embarrassment that he skipped dinner. Now that he knew he missed dinner he felt as if his stomach was empty. Neo stood still in the dark room. He kept his phone shining in front of him as he strolled across the hardwood towards the door and flicked the light switch beside it. Immediately, the room became illuminated. Neo's vision became blurry due to the sudden change in lighting, but then quickly adjusted. Once his eyes came into focus, Neo noticed his bag which was beside his bed. Neo assumed that someone dropped it off while he dozed off. Neo turned off his phone, now no longer needing its light and slipped it in his left pocket, however as he was putting it in, he felt something else in his pocket. Neo then, curious about the mysterious object, put his phone on the desk and reached for the item, as he grabbed the small item and dragged it out he noticed by the feel of it that it was a card. He pulled it out and took a look at it. It was that one card that Jaden pointed out when he gave it to him, Elemental Hero Neos. Neo looked at the card, a tad confused on why it was still here. He figured that it was in the pile he had given to Allie, but perhaps it had slipped away from it as he hastily grabbed the deck earlier. Neo stared at it, the eyes of the being seemed to look at his. Neo, not really knowing what to do with it, put it on the desk on top of his phone. He then walked to the old suitcase and dragged it to the center of the room. He placed it down and opened it to be greeted with the things he packed.

First, Neo took out the backpack inside and placed it beside him. Neo then shuffled through the various clothes he had brought until he came across a maroon tee. Neo took that out as well as a pair of blue jeans and then began to switch out his current clothes with the new ones. Neo then gave the shirt a small tug to straighten it out. He figured that maybe he can pass with just a red shirt today, after all, it was the first day, and some mistakes were acceptable. Neo tossed the dirty clothes across the room. He had no laundry basket, so that'd have to do for now. Neo then turned toward the new black backpack and unzipped the main pocket. He double checked to make sure he had everything in it, two college-ruled notebooks, an empty binder, and his laptop was all inside. Neo sighed in relief, it was a good thing he packed his bag before he left, he zipped it back up and lifted it up to his chest. He slung the backpack over his arm and slipped the 2 straps over his arms. Now with everything ready. Neo grabbed his phone and Neos from the desk and slipped it in his pocket. He figured maybe he could trade the card for some cash or something, figuring that it was probably of some value.

Neo then walked towards the door, turned off the lights, and shut it, he was on his way. Neo stood on the top platform. No one was there, aside from him, everyone else must've either left already or was still sleeping.

Neo walked down to the ground and walked into the main hall to see if Chumley was awake, he might as well say sorry for not making it to the dinner. As he opened the door, the sound of several students eating and chatting entered his ears. Neo took a look around at them. Two boys were viciously arguing about something that Neo didn't care to hear about, nor did they care to look at Neo at the door. A few girls who were at first chatting loudly then noticed Neo at the door and then their chatting became quieter. No doubt they were gossiping about what had happened during the orientation. Someone who noticed Neo instantly, however, was Chumley, who was sitting at a small desk in the back of the main hall.

"Hey, sleepy head!" He said calling Neo over towards him. Neo half smiled as he walked towards the desk.

"Sorry." Neo calmly stated as he rubbed his eyes, "I was really tired last night."

"Yeah, I saw when I checked on ya." Chumley replied, chuckling a bit afterward. "You must be pretty hungry."

"Yeah I am", Neo responded, "Is there anything left for breakfast?"

"Unfortunately not", Chumley responded "Everyone apparently was just as hungry as you were. "Fortunately", he continued as he opened a drawer on his side of the desk "I saved ya a grilled cheese,'' he said as he gave Neo a half of grilled cheese, wrapped in a clear plastic wrap.

"Thanks," Neo said as he grabbed the now room temperature sandwich. "I should probably go, I have no idea where all my classes are yet."

"Alright kid, have a good day." Chumley happily said as he waved goodbye, "Oh and don't forget, PE class takes place in the annex, as does all the other G.E Classes."

"Got it, see you then," Neo said as he headed back towards the door and waved goodbye. Neo then left the hall and walked the way he came to the dorm. While he calmly strolled, Neo took out the phone in his pocket, now nearly dead as he hadn't charged it since he left for Neo Domino and pulled up the app once more, This time, a new icon was available, which brought up his schedule. Neo took a glace as he paced down the dirt path. His first class was World History, which like Chumley had stated was in the annex as well as his English, Math, and PE class, which was 6th, 4th, and 2nd respectively. However, the classes he dreaded, Deckbuilding 101, as well as Dueling 101, took place in the main building, which was 3rd and 5th. Neo would have to do a lot of running in between periods to get to the annex and main building in time. Fortunately, according to the map Neo quickly brought up after he looked at the schedule, it was relatively close by the main building. Following the map, once Neo reached the center, now bustling with people he took a left and followed the pathway until he reached a small building behind an open, black paint. Next to the gate placed on the ground was a newly painted sign, with the words "Academy Annex" placed on it. Around the fence, featured perfectly cut shrubbery, not a single one cut incorrectly, all a perfect square.

Suddenly Neo felt a tap on his shoulder, followed by a friendly, "Hey!" Neo turned around, it was Melina, in the same uniform that he had seen her in yesterday, only now it was accompanied by a black backpack behind it. "You have a class here too?" She asked once they made eye contact.

Neo gave a smile, "Oh hey," Neo said giving a friendly tone, "Yeah I do, World History is first for me."

"Wait World History? No way, I have that class too!" She said with glee realizing that she had someone to talk to during class. "That's kinda weird though, World History is supposed to be a 2nd-year class after you take Duel history."

"Really?" Neo said surprised. "Maybe one of my teachers recommended me to move up or something," Neo concluded, silently thanking Mr. Desner for getting him out of doing a dueling class.

"Maybe," Melina calmly responded. She then walked past Neo towards the gate. "C'mon, I'll show you where the class is at."

"Oh, thanks," Neo said as he walked to where he was next to her and they both began walking inside. "This building is really nice, and it's just the annex", he commented still wondered with the prestige of this academy

"Yeah," Melina replied, looking at the scenery. "Did you know that this actually used to be a dorm?"

"Oh really?" Neo said now more curious about the building than ever. The two then came across the open door and began walking in the halls. The floor a white tile with doors on each side of them as well as students walking across the halls.

"Yeah, my dad told me that it used to be one before it became empty." Melina continued. "When they moved back to the island, they renovated this place and since they needed to accommodate all the General classes, they made it an annex."

"How'd it become empty?" Neo questioned curiously about the missing part in Melina's story.

"To be honest, no one really knows, but rumor has it that all the dorm members disappeared after a Shadow Duel." Melina said in a dramatic fashion as if telling a spooky story at a campfire, but then chuckling stating, "But those are just rumors, who knows what actually happened."

"Interesting," Neo said, fascinated with the building, perhaps if he got bored he could do some research about this location.

"Anyways, here it is, room 205," Melina said as she stopped and pointed towards the door on the right next to Neo.

Neo turned and faced the red door with the white numbers 205 plastered on the door. He grabbed the brass bar attached to the bright door and tugged it towards him. Inside was a large lecture hall already filled with several students in each row. Neo stepped in as he let go, Melina followed right behind him. Neo and Melina stood at the door. Neo looked around for an open seat, there were some in the front, but he didn't wanna be that person who stood in the front and was always seeking attention, nor did he want to be with the groups dozing off in the back. Neo looked at where people were migrating. A few guys were nearby looking at their decks and chatting, and a couple of kids in the front few rows were dueling on the desk.

Neo sighed, even in a standard class, dueling was still very prominent. Neo then noticed a group of girls who seemed to notice Melina and waved at her. That was her queue to join them. Melina gave a wave back as she proceeded to walk over towards that direction. Midway towards her destination however, she looked back and gave a wave goodbye to Neo. Neo gave a wave back and then proceeded to walk to the stairs and go up a couple of rows.

There was a spot sort of in the back, but Neo figured it wasn't too bad. He quickly slid into the row, sitting right on the edge. He then took his backpack off and placed it underneath the desk. He now looked at the classroom with a bird's eye view. Similar to the school, it was massive, and filled with light green tiles. Up front was, of course, the teacher's desk with a large screen placed behind it. Neo looked back and forth, left and right at his classmates, most of them were, in fact, upperclassmen like Melina said, Neo could tell due to their confidence in what was going on where freshmen would naturally be a tad more timid, similar to how he was acting.

Suddenly, the door opened once more. Instantly Neo took at a glance of the student. It was none other than the champion herself, holding the door open and waving goodbye to people behind her. Neo instantly looked away from Allie to make sure that they didn't make eye contact. Neo should've figured that she'd be in this class, but it was still inconvenient. Fortunately, she didn't seem to notice Neo as instantly a large crowd made of a majority of the class surrounded her, attempting to make friends with the best in the academy. Neo quietly groaned as he took out his phone to focus on something else. It was 9:28, the class would begin shortly, Neo just killed the time by scrolling through his multiple social media profiles until he heard the classic beeping of a school bell. For some reason, no matter how prestigious the academy was, all schools seemed to have the same bell ring.

Almost immediately, the teacher arrived. He was a middle-aged man, seemingly the same age as Jaden. He had dark hair that was neatly organized in the front but sticking out slightly in the back. He walked down the aisle with sheer confidence, displaying his formal appearance of black dress pants with the signature large yellow coat that was fitting of any teacher. This one, more than likely was the Head Consoler of the Ra Yellow Dorm. He went down towards his desk, as the group of students dispersed and all took their spots, thankfully, Allie decided to take a spot a few rows down from Neo. Melina followed her friends and took the row behind Neo, now whispering. Finally, the teacher reached the desk and the room fell completely silent. The elegant teacher stood by his desk as he looked at the group of students silently and then began to begin speaking.

"Greetings, students, and welcome to World History", the teacher spoke "I'm sure you all know me, as most of you have had me for Dueling 101, but for those who instead had Mr. Truesdale, my name is Bastion Misawa, but you may refer to me as either Mr. Misawa or Professor Misawa."

Neo's eyes widened. Bastion Misawa. That was a name he had heard before from one of Jaden's tales. He was a calm and strategic gentleman as Jaden had described him, who at his time was considered the best academic student of his class. For all of his achievements however, he was instead here teaching classes it seemed.

Bastion then took a stapled packet from his desk and took a glance at it, "Before we get started, however, I need to take attendance, so when I say your name, say 'here'." He then went down a list of names, all with students responding with either "here" or something quirky like a "present" or a "What's Up?" You could tell that those kids were the class clown types. Neo had a lot of waiting to do, his name wouldn't be called until the end, and there were at least 70 other students here. Neo took a look around at the students, most were wearing Ra yellow and Obelisk blue uniforms, although there were a few Slifer reds in the crowd. Neo assumed this was mostly due to many Slifers moving up after freshman year. It didn't take long however until Bastion reached the last few letters of the alphabet. Once Melina gave here response, giving a casual, "Hello." Neo began to think about what he was saying. He could try to be quirky, but then again that would make him stand out more than he already does without a uniform. He could also try to be serious and say, "Present", but perhaps that would make him come off as too serious. He figured that just saying "here", would be well enough. He listened closely and prepared for his introduction, as Bastion neared the Ys

"Alright," said Bastion moving on to the next member. As he reached the next member, he gave a loud sigh, "Allie Yuki…"

"Here!" Allie said loudly in a cheerful tone. Neo had nearly forgotten Allie was even here. He was in trouble now, no doubt he was next, and no doubt his identity would be revealed to everyone, including Allie, Neo silently panicked. Was there any way he could get out of this scenario? He thought about it briefly. No, there was no way, even if he tried to lie, Allie would still instantly know the second he raised his hand. He tensed up. He was going to have to say it, no matter if he wanted it to or not.

Bastion sighed again, "Ms. Yuki, I do hope you plan on actually passing this class this year." Bation said, clearly implying that Allie failed this class last year. Allie was clearly a dueling prodigy, not a history one.

"You bet sir!" Allie confirmed, there were a few chuckles in the room.

"We shall see, Ms. Yuki…" Bastion said still uncertain about Allie's dedication towards history. "Alright last one", Bastion continued going down the list. Neo braced for it. Here it came. "Well, well…" Bastion stated, a tad surprised. "We have a freshman in here. Neo Yuki."

"Here." Neo quietly said as he raised his hand, instantly a majority of the class shot towards his direction, no doubt due to the name. Neo looked at the crowd, there were now whispers, Neo looked mostly to his right, trying not to make eye contact with Allie, he didn't wanna see her reaction right now.

"Well, Mr. Yuki, welcome to duel academy", Bastion formally stated. "I do however sincerely hope you're not like your sister, or else this class is going to prove to be difficult for you.'' He said, making a jab at Allie.

"I'll do my best sir," Neo said attempting to appear calm when in reality his heart was racing. His short little facade was over, Allie definitely knew who he was now. Bastion continued speaking but Neo didn't care much to listen. Right now Neo was attempting to calm himself down.

Breathing slowly.

In…

out.

In…

out,

In..

Out...


	6. Rock Bottom

Allie sprinted straight down the old dirt road, her newly bought white shoes were being swarmed by the dirt her heavy foot was causing, but she didn't care. She needed to say something, anything to him. She couldn't let her horrible mistake go unforgiven, this was her fault, and it was she who needed to apologize. She continued down the road, the beautiful trees and landscape becoming a blur as she began to breathe fast and heavily. She couldn't stop, no matter how much she wanted to. The eternal road eventually came across the small dorm house, standing perfectly still next to the beautiful blue of the sea. Next to the road where the Slifer Red dorm stood was a small, old wooden dock, the wood beaten and bruised but comforted by the mending of the waves moving towards it. Allie turned the foot in front of her to brake herself. She began to drift down the dirt road, dust now getting on her black jeans as well as completely painting her shoes a brand new shade. She came to a halt right at the start at the wooden dock. To her right, the dorm room, to the left, a large tree, being planted since the dawn of time.

Allie looked across the dock, her breath beginning to slow down, the dock stretched out far, but at the end, she could see a boy. His cream-colored hair glistened in the sunlight as it moved up and down from the light breeze. The silver jacket tied to his waist seemingly attempting to mimic the hair movement as it braced the boy's blue jeans and a black shirt. He looked beyond, not looking at what was behind nor next to him. He stood there, completely still, listening for a sign from the waves, trying to tell him what lies for him in that endless sea.

Allie placed one foot on the old wooden dock. Even the small step made the wood creak in anger for disturbing such a peaceful moment, but the boy remained motionless. Allie stood there, trying to find a way to approach the boy, but he seemed to be too far in the distance for her. How could she approach him? How could she fix what she's done?

Suddenly, the world began to turn dark as the boy tilted downwards toward the sea and let the water swallow him whole, barely making a splash. Allie's heart began to pound furiously as she shouted his name in an attempt to call him, but he didn't hear her. She sprinted down the dock, the floating piece of wood tossing and turning as she reached the end and dove straight in, closing her eyes. She went in, opening her eyes, letting the burning salt water fill her eyes, as she searched downward she spotted the boy, sinking more and more, laying down, not moving. His eyes opened as he saw her. She swam, deeper, deeper. Until finally getting close enough to almost reach him. She stretched out her hand asking for his forgiveness. He stared at it for a few seconds, going deeper into the abyss, but the boy closed his eyes instead, accepting his fate. She screamed his name as she stopped diving downward and watched him sink more and more. Her call was left unanswered as the water silenced her and she watched her brother fall into darkness.

A knock on the white wooden door caused Allie to shoot up from the royal blue queen-sized bed in a short scream of terror. She sat there her legs covered by the warmth of the white sheets inside the bed. She was breathing like crazy, tears running down from her eyes. A voice from outside of her room began to ring out.

"Hey, you ready to go?" A girl's voice said from the other side of the door. It was Allie's friend. That's right, they were going to hang out around 6ish. Allie quickly attempted to calm down enough so that there weren't any noticeable oddities with her voice.

"Yeah! Just give me five minutes and I'll be out!" Allie shouted in order to get her voice past the door, still attempting to slow down her breathing.

"Okay, I'll be waiting in the lobby!" The girl quickly responded as she began to walk away from the door and into the halls. The sound of her footsteps echoing from the white tile in the hall. As the voice faded away, Allie breathed a sigh of relief. She looked towards her left at the outdoor view, covered by the large glass pane that stretched down to the bottom of the wall. The sun was beginning to set as the sight of all the buildings and trees began to be tinted in an orange hue. Allie stared at it for a while, her heart finally slowing down. The sight of the trees moved in synchronization with the wind seemingly comforting her, confirming that it was just a nightmare. Her situation, however, was far from one. Allie took her right hand and collected the remaining tears on her cheek as well as the bit being produced on her right eye.

She turned her feet towards the side of the bed, dragging it out of bed and placed her bare feet on the cold, white tile. She stood straight up. Her body felt the cold breeze of the air conditioning as Allie continued to stare at the window, attempting to see if she could maybe spot him, but to no avail. She finally escaped the sight of the outdoors as she turned left to look at the white metal nightstand placed beside it. On it was her phone, placed face down so her rose-gold case can show. Beside it stood an unsleeved deck of cards, the one she got as a supposed birthday gift from her brother. She took a brief look at it, still thinking about the dream and then moved her hand and took her phone. She flipped the metal rectangular prism and turned it on using the button on the top. It flicked on showing the time of 6:15 as well as the date.

September 17th. It had already been nearly a month since she realized her mistake and yet she hasn't done anything to resolve it. How badly she wanted to do something, but instead she was stuck at the start, not knowing how to answer it. Allie turned the phone off and slipped it into her jean pocket and walked towards a coat hanger which stood beside a small white dresser. On it hung her uniform as well as a light jacket for the upcoming fall. She grabbed her uniform vest and slipped the sleeves through her arms and then finally put it in place by giving it a small tug. She then opened up the top drawer of her dresser, inside as a set of t-shirts as well as a small collection of socks. She hastily grabbed a pair, not caring which pair she chose and then closed it up. She then walked up towards the door leading to the hall and slipped on the white shoes, still perfectly clean and opened the door.

She approached the lobby after a minute of walking down the hall to see her friend. A girl with long black hair done up in a ponytail. She was wearing a pink tee-shirt with some words on it placed in white as well as a pair of denim shorts seemingly attached to her skin. She stared at her phone until she heard the sound of Allie approaching and then looked up to see her. "You just gonna go in your uniform?" The girl said, questioning Allie's choice of clothing.

Allie chuckled a bit, "Yeah, it's uh kinda all I have right now,'' Allie said with a touch of embarrassment as she looked at her old uniform she had been wearing for a few years. "I grew out of a lot of my clothes during the summer."

"Alright, well we're for sure going clothes shopping, cause there's no way you're gonna look cute while wearing that." The girl said as she smiled and walked towards the glass door.

Allie sighed as she smiled, "We're at a school, not in a city or something, I don't need to look cute." She responded.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we can't dress up a tad." The girl said as she opened the door and walked through it. She held the door open as she said, "You coming?" In a friendly tone.

"Yeah." Allie said as she walked through the door to join her friend.

They walked down the paved pathway, the sky becoming darker as the lamps placed around the sidewalk began to light up. Nightlife at the academy was already up and running. People just casually talking amongst each other, giggling and laughing as they sit down and relax no longer in their uniforms. Couples sat beside the fountain placed in the center of one of the many plazas that stood in the academy. There were no duels, no chanting, no attack calling, just the ambient sounds of the night. Allie found all of this to be the best part of duel academy and with all the stress that comes from school life settling in, a night just relaxing was nice.

Allie walked side by side with her friend. Her friend, wishing to break the silence, turned her head towards Allie.

"So how's your year going so far?" The girl inquired.

"It's going I guess." Allie said as she chuckled a bit. "It's been pretty busy for me".

"Oh I'm sure." The girl quickly responded. "You're number one, they expect a lot out of you."

"Yeah." Allie said, now uncomfortable about the conversation. "I wish I wasn't sometimes. It's a lot of pressure."

"Yeah, it definitely is,'' the girl said, starting to realize that she had soured the mood. "Hey, at least you're not your brother."

"My brother?" Allie said, confused about why she had brought him up. He was the last person she wanted to talk about.

"Yeah I mean, for a Yuki, he doesn't act like one,'' The girl explained. "My friends who have had him in their classes told me that he's always quiet. He just always looks cold and scary, and I heard that he outright refuses to duel at all".

"Is that wrong?" Allie said, offended that she'd talk about him like this. Is this really what they thought about him? Just because he skipped one stupid duel? They didn't know the full story. Any reasonable person would've run if their sibling completely forgot about them. "He may not look like it, but he's nice. He's also really good at dueling too. We used to play together before I came here. I never won a single match against him".

"Well I mean, that was then." She refuted. "I'm sure anyone could crush him if they dueled against him now."

"I guess." Allie said with an annoyed tone in her voice. Her friend seemed to pick up on this as she remained silent for the rest of the way there.

After a very brief thirty minutes, the two had reached their destination, the center of student life in the academy, Yuki Plaza, named after Allie's father. As she entered it through one of the many pathways that led to it, she saw the beauty of the plaza at night. At the center of the large red brick, shopping square was a statue of Allie's father. He stood at least 20 or 30 feet. His face gave a grin of confidence as he shot his hand and pointed forward, telling all students who met the student hero to keep pushing onwards with a smile on your face. Many had that interpretation at least. Around the statue of Jaden were several shops. Food, clothes, groceries, cards, it was all in the nicely lit up plaza. Due to this, it was the most popular spot to hang out at in the campus, especially at this hour when the light of the sun is dimmed and all that's left is the soothing night with the small bright lamps. Students were up and about, walking through stores, sitting by the statue, taking pictures, and just chatting. All of this is frequent action in Yuki plaza.

A tap on the shoulder brought Allie back into reality as her friend attempted to get her attention.

"Do you mind if we stop by the general store first?" The girl inquired "I need a new pair of headphones, my old ones broke randomly a couple of weeks ago"

"Yeah that's fine." Allie happily responded. She didn't mind as they weren't really on a time table, she could stay at Yuki plaza for a full day and still not be even the slightest bit tired. They began to walk around the plaza, passing by the several shops each with a different aesthetic and design. One such shop was the famous "Avia Cafe", a small brick building painted in a dark green hue with a nice wooden feel to the inside, as seen through the glass panes in the front. Even at this hour, the small building was packed, nearly all the chairs both on the inside being filled with students. Some were chatting amongst each other, others were quietly sitting there, staring at the old book in front of them, attempting to memorize every little fact for their upcoming tests. Another popular store was "Crystal Clothing", a large bright white building which made the buildings surrounding the building quake at its sheer mass. Its massive white Neon sign, as well as the bright white tile on the inside, attracted many people into its doors, like moths. Allie liked to play a game now and then when she's walking to a class where she'd count up all the people around her that are wearing something from Crystal's. She once counted around eighty people all within a couple of classes.

After walking briefly through these as well as several other shops, they had reached their first store. The bright red neon light read, "Lyman's Goods", a small but convenient store not having a specific item which it sold, but instead chose to sell a bit of everything. Both Allie and her friend went in together and were greeted with the cold air conditioning and the massive amount of items and clothes all cramped into a building perhaps a tad too small. Allie followed her friend as they went to the left. They passed through the shelves, all filled with different products until they reached a small electronics section. The girl strolled down the row of items until she came across the headphone area and then began to scroll through that area as well. She eventually took out a pair of white earbuds which were shown behind the tough clear plastic. She showed them to Allie asking, "What do you think?"

"They're fine." Allie calmly responded. "A bit expensive aren't they?"

"Yeah, I guess." The girl said as she looked back up to see the tag shown on the price. "But I like having expensive things, makes be more careful with them." The girl then stood up confident with her decision and walked out of the row and back towards the door, they then went down the row to approach the cashier. There wasn't much of a line, only a boy paying for his things. He grabbed his bag from the counter and placed it beside him and turned around. He had dark brown hair which was a complete mess. Every single bit seemed to be going a different way. His eyes were a dark brown as well. Sporting a Slifer red uniform he walked passed Allie not taking a second to look at her, giving a face of tiredness. As he passed Allie, a sound of something hitting the white tile of the store. Allie looked downward. It was an ID Card, its white back face up. It must've flipped over as it fell. Allie bent down and picked it up. She then turned around in an attempt to give it back to the owner but the owner had already left. She looked back down at the card, "Xavier Valerz", it said. Now that's a name she never heard before. Perhaps he's simply a new student and she hadn't gotten his name down yet, she was terrible at remembering names.

The cheerful sound of a girl's voice saying, "I can help you over here." called Allie to turn back around and look at the cashier. The girl had short crimson red hair, only going down to around her shoulders. She wore a bright green apron which was standard of all stores but on the bottom, she also wore a maroon t-shirt, it was hard to tell, but it was most likely the Slifer red t-shirt that students can wear as an alternative to the uniform. Allie and her friend approached the girl. They placed down the pair of earbuds and the girl quickly took them and proceeded to scan them. It was relatively silent until a voice from a door behind the door began to ring out, "Hey Ruby, check this out!" The boy said in glee from inside the room.

"I'm helping someone right now, what is it?" Ruby turned around as she watched the green door open to another employee. The blue-haired boy with a seeming matching blue headband wrapped around his head pushed the door open with a box he was carrying full of CDs. He stepped out as he turned to Ruby and tilted the box downward for her to see. "When did we get these?"

"I dunno." Ruby replied, "I don't exactly manage what gets ordered."

"Aren't you a manager though?" The boy retorted. "I thought you pretty much do everything here Ms. 'I rule everything in this store."

"This is coming from the guy who demanded that we have to reorganize all the items every time some walks in and moves stuff around." Ruby began to argue. "And are you seriously wearing that headband right now?" Ruby interrogated as she pointed at the bright blue headband on the boy's forehead.

"The band gives me power." The boy said. "Don't you wear that bandana you have when you paint?"

"That's to make sure the paint doesn't get in my hair,'' Ruby replied, beginning to raise her voice. "That just makes you look stupid".

"Hmph." The boy said as he turned his head. "You're just jealous of my style."

"Don't you have, like, something better to do than to pester me about stupid crap?" Ruby said, beginning to get annoyed with the boy

"My shift's over, I'm just waiting for him to show up to take my shift." The boy said "He's late you know".

"Because you told him to get coffee first! Don't you know how long those lines are?'' Ruby said. "Why do you need coffee anyways? It's like eight o'clock!"

"Relax, I told him to get decaf." The boy said trying to calm Ruby down. "It's not like I'm staying up late and studying, I just want some coffee."

"Clearly,'' Ruby said as she turned back around and faced Allie. "I'm really sorry, my brother Sapphire over there apparently doesn't know when I'm doing something."

"It's fine", Allie said chuckling a little bit. "I have a brother too. Brothers can be frustrating sometimes." More like sisters are frustrating. If anyone has the right to be annoyed at a sibling, it's him

"Tell me about it.'' Ruby said casually. A receipt began to print out and Ruby took it once it finished. She handed it to Allie, "Thank you so much, sorry for the fuss."

"Thank you." Allie said as she grabbed the light paper. The door proceeded to open behind them as another person entered the store. Allie and her friend began to turn around but then stood completely still at the shock of who was at the door. It was none other than Neo, sporting a black shirt as well as a pair of blue jeans, carrying a drink holder with three small plastic coffee cups. Neo continued walking through the door as he stopped in shock as well. Out of sheer coincidence, both were faced against each other once again.

"Hi." Allie awkwardly said.

"Hi." Neo responded, noticeably uncomfortable.

"Hey, you're late!" Ruby said from behind the counter. "Sapphire's waiting for you".

"Yeah I'm sorry, the line was long", Neo said as he brushed right past Allie, not even taking a look at her. Allie turned her head around to see Neo placing the coffee holder down on the counter and talking to Ruby and Sapphire, their conversation inaudible to her.

Another tap from Allie's friend caused Allie to jump out of her shocked state and turn to her friend. "Hey, are we headed out?'' The girl said, confused on why Allie stopped so suddenly.

"Yeah, sorry, I don't know what happened there,'' Allie said, knowing exactly what happened. The girl gave Allie a silent nod in acknowledgment as proceeded to leave the cold store and into the warm summer night.

As they exited the store, Allie turned back around. From the glass pane, she saw Neo in the distance, talking and having coffee with Ruby, now with an apron on as well. When would be the right time? When could she say sorry? He seemed so distant from her, so close to her grasp and yet the farthest apart she's ever been to him. She looked at him, the man at the bottom, she had everything he didn't. Fame, Talent, Recognition from her peers, she was at the top of it all, and yet she envied the man at the bottom. A free man, allowed to be whatever he wanted to be and do whatever he wanted to without the judging of what he did. Rock bottom, what a great place to be, where all he could do is go up.

Neo stared into the glass from inside the store, the coffee in his hand, now beginning to cool off. He saw Allie talking to her friend in the distance. How did she fell about him? He hadn't talked to her, nor did she seem to want to talk to him. He had nothing left, except for that name. Neo looked down at the green apron he was wearing. The name tag on it read, "Neo Yuki.'' Yuki, that name was the only thing holding him back from blending in. He hated it, to be known only from a name. To be expected to be something he's not due to a name. He grabbed the name tag firmly. He wanted so badly to rip it off and chuck it out the window, because of it, he was the worst person on the campus. Rock bottom. What a horrible place to be.


	7. The Underground - Part 1

Neo looked at the old stainless steel racks, inside of a storage closet barely the size of him, the racks completely filled with boxes, its contents unknown. He looked through them, trying to find one in particular, but they stood there, appearing completely identical. Neo turned back to the open door of the storage closet from where he had entered. He looked at the counter of the old convenience store.

"Which one is it again?" Neo asked towards the empty store.

"It should have a label on it that has the number 025 on it", the voice of a girl responded.

Neo looked back towards the boxes, he stared at them, until he noticed a small white label placed on the bottom of each of them. For as unorganized as they appeared, they were in actuality, number ordered. Neo went down the line, beginning at one.

Shortly after Neo began to look through, the head of Ruby popped in the opening of the storage closet.

"You find it?" She asked, clearly becoming impatient.

"Think so." Neo said as he continued scrolling across the boxes until he came across number twenty-five. He reached towards it and pulled the flimsy box out of the shelf. It was strangely light, it was a new shipment, so Neo expected it to be heavy, but it had almost no weight at all. He slung his left hand over it as he walked out of the storage closet and into the front counter where Ruby was standing. He placed the box on the recently cleaned counter and looked at Ruby, "What is this anyway?" Neo inquired as Ruby approached the box and began to pull off the tape from the recently shipped box.

"It's our latest order of comic books,'' Ruby said as she pulled the flaps of the cardboard box open to reveal several paperback comic books, all stacked neatly so that they fit perfectly in the box.

"We sell comic books?" Neo said as he peeked his head into the box. "Since when?"

"Starting today," Ruby said as she began to take them out and place them on the counter. "There's a comic book artist on campus who has been doing this series for a few years now online, but only this year has he got permission from the office to print copies and sell them.

"Really?" Neo said curiously as he picked up the book on the top of the stack and looked at the freshly printed paperback, rotating it to the backside. "Do people read it?"

"Yeah, it's actually pretty popular among the people who are actually interested in something other than dueling,'' Ruby said poking at the majority of the students as most of them don't seem to care about anything besides the small cardboard cards. "I've been reading since the beginning." She said as she picked up the next book and put it aside to keep it for herself.

"Hey, I thought you said we can't take things for ourselves from the inventory." Neo said, slightly joking.

"Relax," Ruby said as she proceeded to take out her wallet from the pocket of her blue jeans. She walked around the front desk to the other side, facing Neo. She took out from her wallet a crisp dollar bill and handed it to Neo, "I'm paying for it."

Neo gave a small chuckle as he took the dollar and put it in the cash register, still open from when they were counting up money earlier. He then looked back at the comic book, the front contained a girl in an obelisk blue vest and a black shirt. Her face covered up with a white mask as her blond hair done up in a ponytail began to fly through the wind as she proceeded to kick a person in the face, assumedly a villain of some sort. His face shooting out blood as he began to fly into the wall next to him. On the top of the cover was the words, "Maiden of Mystery" in a bold yellow to contrast the dark blue of the rest of the scene.

"Quite a dark cover ain't it?" Neo said appalled by the brutality of the cover.

"Hey, don't judge a book by its cover." Ruby said as she walked back to the other side of the desk. "It looks dark, but surprisingly there's some comedic moments. It's supposedly a true story, about a girl who has a second personality who's super crazy and attacks a bunch of people at night, but the girl and the other person come to an agreement to only attack villains in the name of justice!"

"There's no way that's a true story,'' Neo said, doubting the idea that such a thing could be possible.

"Well, the backstory is made up, but the author said that this girl actually saved his life when he was a freshman here and began to make stories about her," Ruby answered. "Whether or not he's lying is unknown, but some people say that the mystery maiden still roams around at night and protects students from the evils that lurk in the darkness of Academy Island."

"Another scary story," Neo said. "I swear this Island has way too many mysteries and problems, why can't this school just be normal and be in the city or something?"

Ruby chuckled, "You're such a pessimist I swear,'' she said with a joking tone. "I like to think it gives the island character, it's a lot more interesting than if it was just some boring city!"

"I guess," Neo said. He looked at the store, the shelves covered with all kinds of products and prices, but empty with customers. Not many came around to this store, it was the kind of store that you'd only go to if you had lost a phone charger or needed more notebooks. Neo turned around and looked at the old analogue clock behind him. "11:58", it read. They always closed late, so oftentimes Neo wouldn't get back to his dorm room until around oneish, but he didn't mind as much. Everyone in the Slifer Red dorm was asleep at that point in time, so he didn't have to talk to that many people, not that many people talked to him anyway, but the more he could avoid talking to those idiot gossipers, the better.

He turned and took a glance at Ruby, who was flipping through her comic book, trying to kill time before they closed. She was really the only Slifer Red he talked to, and that's only because he had met her when he was hired onto the staff. Not that he hated her or anything, in fact, it was good to have at least somebody to talk to, but he didn't know why she was even talking to him in the first place. She knew who he was, everybody does at this point, and yet despite knowing how he wasn't a duelist in the slightest, she still talked to him, they even walked to the dorms whenever they had closing shifts together, maybe she did it just out of the obligation of being co-workers. He couldn't get a read on her.

Ruby put her comic down as she looked back at the time. Seeing how it was twelve, she sighed as she put her book on the counter. "Alright, well time to close up,'' she said as she turned her head towards her back and began to untie the green apron uniform that they had to wear. "Lock up the doors, will you?"

"Yeah," Neo said as he went around the counter and crossed the white tile to the glass doors. He put his hand in the pocket of the green apron and fished for the door keys. He pulled up the small steel key, placed on a small black lanyard that was given to him when he was hired. He took the key and slipped it in the door handle. He began to turn it, but as he turned it a knock on the door caused him to stop midway. Neo looked up instantly curious to see who would be here so late in the night. Behind the glass door stood none other than Ace, sporting his obelisk blue coat, a white t-shirt as well as some blue jeans. Neo stood there shocked, he hadn't seen him since August, he didn't think that Ace was the kind of person to go shopping for something that does not involve cards, but regardless, Neo hesitantly pulled the key out and opened the door. "Hi." Neo said still confused. "What're you doing here so late?"

"I could be asking you the same question,'' Ace said, seemingly disgusted that he even had to talk to Neo.

"I work here," Neo said. "I kinda have to be".

"Well, I guess that makes sense,'' Ace said as he looked back to see the empty store. "Only the people who are terrible at dueling work, if you actually dueled you would be making way more money than doing this crap".

"Oh, I'm sorry," Neo said, starting to be annoyed. "Did you need something? Or did you just come to shit on me?"

"Well, I did." Ace said. "But I don't need help from garbage, so I'll just take my business elsewhere."

"Care to repeat that?" Neo said taking a step towards Ace as he clenched his fist. Suddenly, a hand from behind Neo grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

"Hey, relax,'' Ruby said as she pulled Neo away from Ace. "I don't need to clean up you guys' blood from the floor".

Neo gave a small grunt as he relaxed his hand. As much as he wanted to punch Ace, doing that would just draw more attention to him, something that he didn't really need more of.

"So, what do you need?" Ruby said looking at Ace.

"I'm looking for directions". Ace said. "I would be asking someone else, but seeing how you two are the only store left open, my options are kind of empty.

"Directions?" Ruby said. "Where to?"

"Obelisk dorm..." Ace embarrassingly responded.

"Wait you're lost?" Ruby said slightly confused. "How did you do that?"

"Hey, don't judge me!" Ace said. "It's not like I go out a lot.''

"Clearly,'' Ruby said as she took the Slifer Red vest from her right hand and put it on, covering up the black t-shirt she was wearing under her apron. "Well, Obelisk dorm is on the way to Slifer, and we were about to head out so if you want you could follow us".

Ace gave a small grunt. "Fine," he said still a tad flustered. "But don't tell anyone I did this".

"Of course," Ruby said as she walked back to the front counter and grabbed two backpacks. One small marron bag just enough to carry a few notebooks and another medium-sized black one. She walked back with the two bags and handed the black one to Neo. "It's not like people would believe us anyway,'' she said as she put the backpack on her back. She turned to Neo. "You ready?"

"Yeah", Neo said, still annoyed that they had to actually converse with Ace. "Just let me take off my apron."

Neo put the backpack down as he untied the knot on the side of the apron. Once untied, he took the apron and mashed it, forming into a ball. He then bent down and opened the big pocket of the backpack. Inside was a few notebooks as well as his only laptop. Neo shoved the apron into his bag and zipped it up. He picked the bag up, still very light and put it on his back. Without saying a word, the three exited the building and stood outside of the store as Neo turned back around and took the key still in his hands and slipped it into the doorknob, turning it until he heard a click, locking it. He slipped the key in his jean pocket and the three exited the now-empty shopping plaza.

They walked across the concrete sidewalk. The academy around them now a void, the only thing visible was the pathway being illuminated by the street lamps all perfectly placed so that the path was completely illuminated. Their steps as they crossed the endless sidewalk echoed, being the only sound in the otherwise empty night. Their mouths remained shut, until Ruby decided to cut the tension.

"Hey, Neo?'' Ruby said as Neo quickly turned to look at Ruby. "Did you see that crazy duel on the app?"

"Which one?" Neo said, unfamiliar with the recent dueling news.

"It happened a few days ago,'' Ruby said. "It was between Professor Misawa and some Ra Yellow guy, but it was really close!"

Ace gave a short grunt, "I saw that one". He said. "Professor was clearly holding back".

"You can tell?" Ruby asked.

"Of course,'' Ace said. "He was using a lot of simple cards, it was probably a trial deck. If he was using his real one, he would've won for sure"

"Wait, I'm lost," Neo said still confused. "Where did you guys see this duel?"

"On the app,'' Ruby said as she pulled out her phone. She opened app the Academy app Neo had seen. "There's a section that shows duel highlights for a week, it's really helpful to see who's doing good and how people are playing."

Neo shrugged, "I didn't know," he said. "I don't exactly go on the app."

"Oh, come on!'' Ace said as he rolled his eyes. "You're the most oblivious person on this campus, I swear!"

"Everyone knows about the highlights, some of the hardcore duelists here watch them to look at thier opponents so they know their strategies," Ace said pulling out his phone as well. "Especially the people in the top 25." He said.

"That's kinda sounds like cheating doesn't it?" Neo said

"It's not cheating," Ace said. "It's using your resources."

"Sounds like something a cheater would say," Neo said, with a mocking grin on his face.

"Call it what you want,'' Ace said as he shrugged as he moved his head slightly to the left. But then suddenly he stopped his movement and turned fully to see what he was looking at. Ruby and Neo stopped soon after, confused about what Ace was looking at.

"What are you looking at?" Neo said as he turned around curious to see what Ace was looking at. In the darkness past the pathway, he could make out two people standing out in the field to their left.

Ruby moved up to see it as well, "What're they doing out so late?" She said confused to see anyone else outside at this hour.

"And in the middle of a field too", Neo said. "A little weird isn't it?"

"Yeah…" Ace said as he began to walk straight towards the people in the distance.

"Hey, woah!" Neo said as he put his left hand on Ace and pulled him back. "What are you doing?"

"Following them,'' Ace said as he pushed Neo aside and continued across the plains cautiously, attempting to not make a single sound.

"Are you stupid?" Neo whispered attempting not to gain attention from the people who Ace was approaching. "We have no idea who they are, for all we know they could just be lawnmowers, it's not our business."

"Lawn mowers?" Ace said clearly annoyed that Neo would even consider something so ridiculous. "At this hour? No way. Something's going on, and I'm gonna get to the bottom of it."

Ace pushed onward eventually being swallowed into the dark void, leaving only Neo and Ruby. Ruby after a few seconds slipped her backpack off her shoulder and quietly placed it down on the ground. She then took slow steps as she followed Ace. Neo looked at her with shock. "Why are you following him?" He questioned.

"We're not just gonna leave him behind." Ruby responded solemnly as she proceeded onward. "Friends don't do that."

"Friends?" Neo said confused "Who said we were friends with him?"

"I did,'' Ruby said focusing her eye on Ace's barely visible figure. "Now come on."

Neo sighed. As much as he didn't care for Ace, there was no way he could let Ruby go out on her own and be the one to blame if she were to get injured. There was no choice. He too quickly slipped his bag off of his tired shoulders and plopped it down beside Ruby's. Neo quickly followed behind Ruby. Quickly, but quietly they traversed the dark ocean of tall grass. There was no sound, only the faint moving of the grass and the talking of the people in the distance. They slowly approached the sound of the three, the faint voices slowly coming into focus as they closed in. They couldn't hear what they were saying, but based on their tones, it was clear that the two of them were guys, and one was a girl. Neo didn't try to look up to see who they were, afraid of being seen sticking his head up. They came even closer and soon Neo could pick up what they were saying.

"Quite surprising to see you here tonight,'' said the deep voice of a guy. "You were barely strong enough last time to take yourself home."

The other man made an angry snort. "I came in underprepared is all." he stated, trying to deny the events of the past. "That won't happen again. I'm winning for sure."

The deep-voiced man chuckled briefly "That's what they all say,'' he said doubting the man.

"You clearly don't know who you're dealing with". The other man snarled. "I'm number 203 in the rankings",

"Two O-Three…", Neo remarked quietly as he caught up with Ruby and Ace as they remained put behind the tall yellow grass.

"Roger Bismark," Ace replied. "He's known for his cutthroat dueling style. He barely lets people breathe as he lays burn damage upon burn damage." Ace made a face of disappointment. "A weak way to duel."

"I've seen him before too,'' Ruby said. "Sapphire dueled him once, of course, that idiot went in blind and didn't know what he was getting into. He lost on turn two".

The other man chuckled again at Roger. "You clearly don't know what _you're_ dealing with,'' he said almost mockingly. "Now then, I need your invite."

"Here," Roger said as the sound of a small paper flapped in the wind.

"Thank you." The man said. "Good Luck, you're gonna need it."

Roger grumbled as his footsteps could be heard moving from the grass field to a set of concrete stairs. A large screech was heard as a metal door from below began to open and then slammed shut.

"An underground bunker, huh?" Ace said intrigued. "Let's see what's inside,'' He then began to walk out.

"Hey! Do you want to die?!", Neo exclaimed to Ace, as he tried to convince him not to go out.

Ace grinned as he began to walk out of the grass. "Just watch."

Ace disappeared from Neo and Ruby's eyes, the sound of Ace's footsteps were faint but obvious enough in the empty night for the man to make a small grunt.

"Oh, a new challenger huh?" The man said as the sound of Ace's footsteps came to a halt.

"Is this the right place?" Ace asked, acting as if he was seeking this place out.

"Depends," the man vaguely responded. "For pain? Yes."

Ace chuckled, "Only the pain of my opponents." He coolly responded.

"Well, well, look at the cajones on you,'' the man said chuckling. "Don't expect it to be a cakewalk".

"Of course," Ace said.

"Alright, let me see your invite."

"Well you see", Ace said calmly. Suddenly, the impact of a fist rang out. The man groaned as he faced the impact of Ace's punch. The sound of him falling to the floor rang out. It was silent, except for the faint sound of the wind. Ace's foot turned around. "You guys can come out, problems solved," he rang out, calling Neo and Ruby out.

Neo hesitantly stepped out. Instantly the limp body of a burly student on the floor caught his eye. Neo stood still, appalled about how Ace managed to take such a strong man down in just a single blow. Ruby, however, didn't seem too frightened by it as she simply strolled right next to the body.

"What did you do?" Ruby calmly questioned. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

"Of course not, I just knocked him out,'' Ace said. "I'm not a psychopath".

"I seriously beg to differ," Neo said, in shock. "What're we supposed to do now?"

"We go in." Ace said matter-of-factly as he began to go down the concrete staircase, entering the underground.

Neo shuddered as he hesitantly followed "Guess I'm dying today…"

"Relax will you?" Ruby replied walking beside Neo.

The three descended down the short staircase, the outside being covered by a concrete roof. The three stood still as they approached the door. A large, rusty door, seemingly kept put for ages stood menacing. The faint sound of music and cheers echoed from behind the doors. Neo turned toward Ruby, Ruby quickly doing the same. They made no sounds, only stared at each other. Ruby gave a straight face, focused on him. Neo gave no facial cues either, but they both knew what each other was feeling. Dread. What was beyond that door was absolutely something not allowed on campus, seeing that whoever organized this had to set up a bodyguard as well as an invite. Wherever that door leads them too, they were certainly not welcome. Neo turned the opposite direction, Ace stood there, looking only at the door. His face stern. He too was scared, but he was determined to see what was beyond. Ace took his hand and placed it on the gateway. He took a breath, preparing. Neo turned to face the door as well, for all he knew this would be his last moments in his life.

Ace pushed the metal door. It screeched in agony, resisting Ace's command for its contents to be shown, but being forced to nonetheless. Instantly the sound of music and cheering seeped through as Ace pushed it open. The door continued to screech until it came to a halt, and the sight of what was behind came into Neo's eyes. An underground bunker it seemed to be. With nothing interesting interior-wise. Concrete walls and floors all around, with lighting coming in through industrial lights hanging from the tall roof. There was people. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. They were students, but none of them were in uniform. They were all wearing light clothing. T-shirts and denim shorts seemed to be the common attire, while the girls there wore spaghetti-strapped ting tops, as well as denim shorts almost to match the boys. There was a faint sound of music in the back, but they weren't dancing. They were dueling. Tons of them stood as they watched duels occur. Dragons, warriors, machines, all stood focused on their opponents.

"An underground dueling ring?" Ace questioned as the three walked in, leaving the door to shut behind them.

"It seems so," Ruby replied. "Still, I don't understand the point of all the security. All the regular dueling arenas are open 24/7, so why here?"

Neo shuddered as he tapped Ruby's shoulder. "I think that's why,'' he said as he pointed towards a particular duel.

There stood two duelists, similar to most duels, not many were watching this duel, perhaps it wasn't all that interesting to the audience, but it had a different tone. A different atmosphere to the calm friendly duels of the norm. One of the duelists, a girl stood behind a ferocious Minotaur creature, carrying an axe in its arms and standing in front of the girl, seemingly protecting her. She stood there, her right arm with her duel disk on her hip, with a confident grin on her face. Her opponent's field was empty, open for a direct attack, the man, however, was bending down. He looked down on the ground, and breathed heavily, trying to calm down. His body, trembling, barely having the energy for him to stand. He tried to straighten his back up, but the second he tried to move up, he groaned and slouched back down. He was in pain.

The girl grinned as she raised her left hand, giving the command for the creature to attack. Instantly, the Minotaur rushed forward. He galloped quickly towards the boy as he lifted the boy and cleanly swiped the boy. In an instant, he screamed in pain as the impact flew his body up into the air. He then slammed down to the ground, the impact of him on the concrete caused his body to make a thumping noise. The Minotaur vanished from the field as the girl stood there laughing.

"Oh my god!" Ruby said as she frantically ran towards the boy. The boy raised his upper body up, trembling more than ever before. Ruby ran towards him and bent down. She glanced at his right arm. There were several cuts, minor, but it was enough for him to be bleeding. The red seeped out, staining his pure skin. She put her right hand onto the boy as she bent down, "Hey, are you alright?" She asked, concerned.

In an instant the boy with the little strength he had left flung Ruby's warm handoff of him, yelling, "GET OFF ME!"

Ruby stepped back, in shock that the boy clearly in pain would reject her help. Ace walked up to Ruby, looking at the boy, "It's disgraceful to do that, he wants to be injured."

"What do you mean?" Ruby said looking at Ace, angered that he would suggest that someone would willingly go through that pain.

"This underground ring is using the Real Solid Vision System", Neo calmly jumped in as he too walked towards the boy. "It was banned a few years back, for its ability to actually inflict pain." Neo turned to his right. "These people…" He paused as he looked at all the other duels, he hadn't noticed it at first, but now that he knew it was being used, he could notice small things. The heaving tension between the two duelists, at the fear of being attacked, the crowd cheering at the entertainment of having someone be injured, a classic form of humor. This wasn't the atmosphere of a duel, it was the atmosphere of a cockfight. "They're here for the thrill of being in danger."

"Sickening," Ace said, infuriated that such a thing would even occur on the famous Academy Island. He instantly moved his right hand in dug into his jeans pockets. He quickly brought out his phone. Within a couple of taps of the screen, his phone became a camera, and soon Ace was taking pictures of the boy, the duels occurring, the people laughing. He was getting evidence, presumably to report it later on. He quickly slipped the black brick into his pocket. "Let's get out of here for now."

Neo and Ruby soundlessly nodded and the three turned around almost simultaneously. The slowing began to walk towards the door. Neo desperately wanted to make a rush out, but the worst situation would be if they were to notice them leaving, so in order to blend in, the three had silently agreed to remain silent. They walked forward. Slowly, one step at a time. The door slowly approached them. The exit was so close!

"Hey There!" Shouted the voice of a man toward the three. Neo quickly began to tense up. They had been caught! The three hesitantly turned around. It was now silent in the room. Everyone was looking at the three who were attempting to escape. The voice brought Neo's eyes toward a man in the center of the crowd. His blue jeans were torn up, from constant attacked and duels. His white shirt and brown hair had dirt in it. He was tall, older than the rest of the crowd. He was no doubt an upperclassman. His brown eyes stared at Neo.

"Where do you think you guys are headed? You know the rules, once you're in, you don't leave until the night's over!"

"Tch!" Ace said briefly, stressed. "You're Gregory Throy." He said looking back at Gregory. "Number 103."

Gregory grinned "Ace Princeton, 304." He responded "The student with the highest duel power out of all of the freshmen."

"So, you do research too huh?" Ace said, interested that Gregory was so studious.

"Of course,'' Gregory replied with pride in his research. "I can't just let any old schmuck into my beautiful facility." He said as he raised his two hands in order to show off his creation of the underground dueling ring.

"Although, I don't believe I gave you or your little entourage there an invite."

Neo braced himself. Here it comes.

"As much as you are impressive Princeton," Gregory said as he laid his hands down to his sides. "I can't just let you guys break-in, I have a reputation to uphold".

He walked towards Ace "I need to make sure that you guys don't go back and snitch on us".

Neo began to sweat. He hastily turned his head around. He could maybe make a break for it, but of course, standing behind them was a group of students, smiles on their faces as they blocked the exit. Neo turned back around, fear began to overcome him.

Gregory stopped as he faced Ace "I suppose I'll have to give you a thrashing myself, just to make sure you learn your lesson," he said grinning, he then turned around and faced the audience "What do you guys say about that?" He shouted towards the rowdy audience. In an instant, they roared, eager to see some more bloodshed.

Ace chuckled as he reached for his pockets, he quickly took out a deck of cards and looked Gregory dead in the eye, a smile on his face. "Bring it on."

Gregory laughed "Confident one aren't you?" He said with a smile. "But you're not the one I'm dueling".

"Huh?" Ace said as he put his deck down.

Gregory grinned once again as he lifted his left hand and pointed it not at Ace, but instead at Neo looking at his face. "You."

Neo jumped back a bit, "Me?" He said nervously pointing towards himself.

"That's right,'' the underground leader responded. "You're Neo Yuki aren't you?"

Neo tensed up. There it was. Why did he know him? He didn't know what his ranking even was. It was no doubt due to that name.

Gregory turned and walked toward Neo, "As much as I do want do duel Mr. Princeton," he said with a smile. However, he then gave a face of anger "I have a bone to pick with you."

Neo stepped back. "I don't have a deck," he said, truthfully, trying to find every possible excuse to get out of this.

"Oh that's not an issue,'' Gregory responded. "I'm sure someone here would be all too happy to let you borrow some cards in order to see some trash be disposed of."

Ruby quickly stepped up. She gave a stern look although all she was feeling was fear. She moved her left hand to protect Neo "Hold on!" She said, getting the beast's attention. "I'll duel!"

Gregory gave a look of disdain as he took his left hand and quickly punched Ruby in the gut. Ruby gave a groan of pain as she flew back and fell to the ground.

"Ruby!" Neo said looking at her, fearful for what he had done to her

"You bastard!" Ace said as he rushed toward Gregory, taking his right hand and making it a fist.

Gregory, not at all worried about Ace going on the attack, quickly snapped his right fingers and upon command, three students quickly surrounded and restrained Ace. Ace kept pushing, his face giving one of an unrelenting bull, struggling to be set free. Neo hastily breathed out as he too tried to punch Gregory as he came closer to Neo. Gregory, reading Neo's punch grabbed the fist with his right hand and quickly took his left and grabbed Neo's black shirt. With Neo captured, Gregory lifted the lanky boy up in the air, Neo struggled to get out, putting his two hands on Gregory's left arm, trying to tug it off but to no avail.

"You know, you could say I'm a big fan of your family,'' Gregory said as the crowd laughed at Neo's condition. "Jaden was a role model of mine when I was little, and Allie is always fun to watch, but when I see you, I feel bad for them," He continued. "You're absolutely worthless, you don't even deserve that name you have." Neo suddenly let go and let his arms rest, letting those words that he had said to him continue. "I bet you don't even know your Duel Power, do you?" He asked. Neo gave no response. "21,456," Gregory answered for him. "That's the exact number of students we have, and you're ranked all the way on the bottom, it's pitiful for someone of your caliber, and it's outright embarrassing for your family." He threw Neo to the ground.

Neo made no sound, he laid his head down on the ground and tears began to run down his face. Neo took his hands and placed them on the ground.

He tried to lift himself.

To rise up from his sad reality.

But Gregory quickly took his foot stepped on Neo's head, bringing him back down to the ground. Neo gave a short grunt. "That's why I'm gonna duel you here, right here, right now, and rid of your family's troubles, without them even knowing.''

Neo tensed up, his face wet with tears. His teeth bared out in frustration, his body trembling. This was it, this is where he would finally be relieved. The sound of laughing was beginning to become muffled as Neo began to close his eyes and go to rest.

"Hold it!" Shouted a voice in the distance. Neo's eyes shot back open, and everyone remained silent as another person entered from the door behind them.

"Hmm?" Gregory hummed as he took his foot off of Neo and back onto the ground. "And who might you be?"

The person approached the opening, she was slender, wearing black tennis shoes, deep blue jeans, and an obelisk vest, a black shirt also residing behind it. Her golden blond hair, done up in a long ponytail, her face, however, was covered with a white mask, on the said mask was two black streaks, to form closed eyes as well as a straight line below in order to create a face. Behind her too was a royal cape, scarlet red, as if to imply her pedigree. On her left hand was a white duel disk with golden highlights, custom colored it seemed. The girl responded firmly "I am your princess," she said seriously. "And you will bow down,'' She said as she approached Gregory.

"Oh? Is that so?" Gregory said interested. He snapped his fingers again, the students holding Ace let go and a couple of other students walked over to Gregory with a white duel disk in hand. Greg grabbed it and slapped it onto his arm, the machine whirling, coming to life. "Why don't you make me then, Princess?"

"With Pleasure," the Mystery Maiden said as she too revealed a duel disk that began to turn on flashing lights of red and blue.

Ruby, finally gaining the ability to rise, slowly stood up and walked over to Neo. She looked at him, on the floor, he was staring at the Maiden. She bent down and grabbed his right arm, lifting him up. Neo hesitantly rose to the floor, Ruby assisting him with his trembling legs. As Neo gained strength to his legs again he looked at the girl standing in front of him. She stood staring at Gregory as the two prepared to duel.

"Hey...isn't she…?" Neo said barely having the strength to speak.

"The Mystery Maiden." Ruby solemnly replied. "I guess heroes do exist after all.'' She said looking at the Maiden too.

Gregory grinned, getting into position, "I hope you're ready princess," he mockingly replied. "Let me see your supreme power!"

"Hmph." the girl calmly responded. "Very well, you shall learn your place!"

"Duel!"

Gregory: 8000

Maiden: 8000


	8. The Underground - Part 2

Neo attempted to stand still on the rock-solid grey floor. Fatigued, trembling, cold, and in pain. He wasn't even sure if he was hallucinating the scene that was being displayed before him or not. The only thing keeping him believing that this was, in fact, reality was the warmth coming from Ruby; who was bracing his arm with her shoulder. Without her help, he would certainly still be on the ground.

Ruby stared solemnly at the duel, a calm face, but with eyes of terror and pain all the same. Neo turned the opposite direction in order to look at Ace, standing to the left of him and Ruby. He was the least physically injured, but he too was injured. They were all in pain, barely with the strength in their bodies to stand. They were in no condition to run, nor were they in any condition to fight. Neo looked at the back of the mysterious figure who had come to their rescue. The maiden who had just an hour ago seemed like a myth, now stood before Neo, an angelic vigilante. There was no way they could retaliate if she were to lose this match. It was up to her.

The Maiden stood proudly, her royal red cape seemingly dancing with the non-existent wind, perhaps through the sheer pressure which the heroine exerted. She pulled out from her deck a set of five trading cards as her opponent, the ruthless, massive, underground boss, took a glance at his set of cards. He smirked as he looked at them, but then quickly stopped himself from viewing emotion. He had gotten something good. The Maiden's reaction to her hand, however, remained nonvisible, her mask making it impossible to get a read on her. It was going to be a bit harder to predict her movements. Still, Neo had to put his faith in the heroine, as everyone in the bunker braced for the highlight duel of the night.

"Duel!"

Maiden: 8000

Gregory: 8000

A predatory glint within Gregory's eyes shined as he took hold of two separate cards and placed them into two of the spell and trap zones, a face-down monster card following along afterward.

"I'll start things off very simply for you, your highness. I place two cards face down and set a monster!" Gregory boldly declared. In an instant, the hidden cards shined onto the field, like a present, they stood just waiting to be revealed. "Now then, shall you show me what you have that can 'put me in my place', Princess?" He said in a mocking tone as if trying to aggravate the Maiden, his expression wielding a smug look as he waited for a reaction from the girl.

Neo analyzed the field. An odd choice for sure. He was sure that Gregory had a good hand as indicated by his small smirk, but a few sets are usually only used in the case of a bad hand. If he had a good hand, but still only set a couple than that must mean… Neo quickly caught on. This was a good hand. He must be playing some form of reaction deck, meaning that one of those three cards Gregory is betting on being able to trigger during the Maiden's turn in order to start his plays. The question remained, however, which one.

A click of the Maiden's tongue could be heard. Regardless, mask or not, anyone who heard the faint echo could tell she seemed ticked from the rant given to her. She drew her top card swiftly, revealing it to be a spell card to them all. "I play the spell Banishment of the Darklords! I add Darklord Nasten to my hand with its effect," the Maiden stated as another card shot out of her deck, allowing her to quickly snatch it from the air. She continued. "Afterwards, I discard two Darklords in hand to special summon Nasten! I send Darklords Superbia and Edeh Arae to the grave to summon Nasten in attack mode!" Once her sentence finished, a bright purple light erupted from the ground, with what appeared to be a two-legged, fusion of two creatures. A head of a lion with a strong body of a Minotaur. The abomination let out a roar as it reared its head back. (2600/2600)

Despite the flashy playing, as well as the obnoxious cheers of the audience, Neo wasn't focused on the spectacle of the Maiden's dueling. He was, instead, thinking about Gregory's field still. Two traps, and only one monster. 'He has more traps, meaning that he's more than likely relying on them more heavily.' Neo turned his attention to the face-down monster. 'The monster probably doesn't do much. He's hoping to keep it in order to build off of it next turn.' Neo looked at the traps. Gregory was probably hoping to use those in order to stop her from destroying it. Yes, it was clear. He must've had some form of battle trap. And yet, it seemed too clear. Like he was raising a sign telling everyone directly what he was doing. It was too easy. Something was off. Neo looked at it one more time. His mind whirled as he focused his lenses, attempting to deduce what the dark, cardboard-backed cards were hiding inside.

"Now, I'm not done," the Maiden continued the display of power. "I now pay 1000 life points to use his effect, targeting Banishment in my grave and using its effect once again, however, I shuffle it back into my deck after resolving it. I add Darklord Ixchel to my hand!" Another card once again slipped from her deck and into the maiden's hand. "Afterward, I play the spell Darklord Contact, special summoning Superbia in the grave in defense mode! And using its effect to bring forth another Darklord, like Edeh Arae in attack mode!" Following her words, two more pillars of light arose from both sides of Nasten. First came an eagle-shaped creature, clad in obsidian black armor with brown wings, the other was an undead monster, blue-colored skin with black angelic wings. (2300/2000) "Now to make sure one of your face downs won't be a bother, I play-"

"Hold On!" Neo shouted toward the Maiden with all the energy he had left. The room which was once full of talking almost instantly fell silent, eyes flew to Neo, but Neo didn't care to see what they were thinking, he had to say something, he had figured it out, and if he didn't say anything then what would result would be a situation in which the Maiden could never come back from. The Maiden turned toward him slowly, seemingly hesitant to see Neo. She put the card down on her side. Neo quickly saw it. Cosmic Cyclone, he was right, she was trying to destroy one of the traps.

"Wha- what do you want?" She said, stuttering, flustered from the sudden halt in her turn.

"Don't play that card", Neo said quietly. "You're gonna fall into his trap if you do."

"What do you mean?" Ruby said, now also looking at Neo.

"If anything, she would fall into his trap if she didn't destroy it,'' Ace chimed in. "Those traps are clearly meant to stop her from attacking that monster, probably something like Mirror Force." He remarked, acting as if Neo couldn't pick that up.

"I thought that too," Neo said. "But it seems so obvious, "Neo moved his right hand slowly off of Ruby's shoulder, gaining the strength to fully stand. "It's not something someone ranked so high would try and do."

"Well, what is it then?" The maiden demanded, tired of Neo beating around the bush. "You're keeping everybody waiting."

"He wants you to believe that's what he's doing, when in fact he's thinking two steps ahead," Neo stated as he stood up straight. "He wants you to destroy those traps, it's probably something that triggers when it's banished or something."

Ace groaned "You're overthinking it. There's no way he would be thinking so far in advance!"

"It may be a stretch, but think about it," Neo retorted. "This is the 103 best duelist out of over 15,000, that means he must be at least somewhat smart.''

"And what if you're wrong?" Ace continued, angered with Neo making comments about dueling, "If she doesn't choose to destroy those cards and you're wrong, she's gonna be in serious trouble.''

Neo turned back to the Maiden. "I'm not sure about this, but I really don't think using that card is a good idea."

"Don't listen to him,'' Ace also turned to the Maiden. "He knows nothing about dueling!"

"Hey!" Neo turned back once again to Ace. "Just because I don't duel doesn't mean I don't know about it. I passed the entrance exam too!"

"Please," Ace responded. "That exam doesn't mean anything, a ten-year-old can pass, there's a difference between learning how to duel, and knowing how to duel!"

"Sure, but you still have to know something about the game in order to pass," Neo retorted. He quickly turned his attention to the Maiden. "Please, just listen to me!'' He begged.

"Shut up for Christ's sake!" Ace exclaimed. "You're speaking nonsense, there's no point in listening to some baseless fool."

"Enough!" The Maiden commanded, suddenly a massive amount of pressure-filled the room as if her voice commanded the mysterious forces of the earth to keep Neo and Ace. The room fell silent. The Maiden paused, to catch her breath. The Maiden snickered, annoyed by Neo's comments. "Fine," she stated. "If it pleases you that much." Obeying, she lowered the card back into her hand.

Neo sighed. He wasn't sure if he was correct, but if he was then she just dodged a big bullet. Either way, he knew that he would find his answer, as the Maiden prepared to go on the offensive.

"If that's the case, then I'll just smash through what he's got! Using Nasten I'll have him attack your face-down monster!" The winged creature took to the air, before hurling itself straight back down towards the face-down card. Its horns piercing through, the shadowy figure of a white armored creature. Its purple cape flowing before dispersing into particles, said monster revealed to be a Bountiful Artemis. "That's not all, Edeh Arae will attack your points directly, strike him down!" On command, the blue-skinned monster flapped its wings, sharpened feathers raining down upon Gregory. The feathers like knives cut several small lines into the student's body until the pain caused him to crouch as he braced himself for the impact.

Gregory: 5700

Dust shot out from the ground, covering the view of Gregory's body. The Maiden chuckled briefly.

"Down already?" She said mockingly "I was expecting a lot more bite than bark, but I guess I was wrong on that."

As the dust settled, however, the laugh of Gregory silenced the room, including the Maiden. As it cleared, Gregory's cut, red flesh was revealed to the crowd. Gregory stood there crouched, in pain, but through it all, he was laughing as he slowly rose up to stand straight. He gave a breath of relief, a massive smile on his face.

"You see princess?" He asked rhetorically. "The pain… The blood... The Action!" He declared raising his hands to the sky. "This is what makes a duel interesting, yes! The pinnacle of entertainment! We all enjoy the pain and suffering of others, all comedy, in fact, lies under this ideal! We thrive for violence, for it pushes us to become more brave, more vicious, more entertaining! Truly, it is the crux of all good entertainment!" He boldly stated as the crowd cheered in agreement. Suddenly, he frowned as he lowered his hands back down. "Unfortunately, all passion for dueling was removed, making it just half of how interesting it used to be. But in here, dueling can be what it is truly meant to be! A Blood sport!" Gregory sighed as the crowd settled down. "But I assume you don't understand that, you're clearly somewhat educated, seeing how you saw through my facedown, but I doubt you truly understand my words,'' he said now pointing his dialogue towards the Maiden herself. "Allow me to demonstrate it to you,'' he said, taking the top card from his deck. "After all, showing is much better than telling!"

Gregory's amber-colored eyes held a mischievous sensation to them as he looked over the cards in his hand. A cackle releasing from the young adolescent before revealing one of the cards in hand. "I'll rid the field of your foul beasts! I play the spell card Dark Hole, destroying all monsters on the field, or in this case, just yours!" A hole opened within the sky as the monsters on the field sucked them all up into it. Relieving the Maiden's field of any defense. "Next, I summon Forth Satellarknight Procyon." With a swift press of his disk a white knight, small in size, but strong in mind, shot down from the heavens. The knight landed on the concrete bent down, but then swiftly arose with his weapon of choice: a ring with white and gold markings (1300/1200). Gregory quickly continued, "His effect sends one "tellarknight" monster from my hand to the grave and draw one card in return! So I send away Satellarknight Rigel away and draw! Next, I'll reveal one of the facedowns you chose to not remove, Call of the Haunted! Which allows me to bring back the Rigel I just discarded!"

A haunting grave rose from before Gregory, with a hand coated in armor erupted! The knight clad in white and yellow armor arose, standing beside his fellow brethren. (1900/700) "His effect grants one of my knights an extra 500 ATK points! So he'll take his own offering. Now, for the main course of this turn of mine! Both of my knights will attack you directly!" The command brought the two monsters into action, a whip and metal ring both striking the maiden, sending her flying from the attack as they retreated to their original placement. The heroine quickly reasserted herself in the air as he arranged her position in order to calmly land on her feet. She stood back up, two small, red bruises on her right arm contrasted the blue of her uniform. She gave a sound of dissatisfaction as she began to pat herself down, removing all the dust that she gathered.

Maiden: 4300

"And now that that's done, I'll set another card and end my turn. Now, stand up so that I can show you even more pain!"

The lady in blue looked at Gregory, despite the mask enveloping her face, a sense of anger was felt by Neo.

"You call that pain huh?" The masked student said drawing the top card from her duel disk. She lifted her head "Allow me to show you what real pain feels like!"

Quickly the Maiden took a card out of her hand and swiftly placed it onto her disk, "I'm activating Pot of Desires!" The card flashed onto the field instantly displaying a card with the image of a hideous pot, with two faces, displaying emotions of greed and desire.

Gregory chuckled, "Really now?" He said mocking the maiden's choice in card. "Are you sure you can handle banishing ten cards like that?" He inquired as the Maiden began to take cards from the top of her deck and slide them into a small compartment located on the back of her duel disk.

"Trust me," she said. "You'll be finished long before I run out,'' she declared, as she finally completed the sacrifice, banishing ten cards. "By banishing ten cards facedown, I draw two!" The Maiden explained as she once again reached for her deck and added the top two cards to her hand.

The Maiden quickly took another card and slapped it onto her fragile disk, "Next, I'm activating Darklord Contact once again! I once again summon Darklord Superbia in defense mode!" She declared as once again the winged creature descended from the sky and then positioned its wings so that it defended the being's face (2900/2400). "Superbia's effect activates again too, allowing be to bring back Darklord Nasten to the field." The Maiden continued Nasten once again returned to the field, it giving another loud roar of pride (2600/2600).

The Maiden shot her hand out commanding the massive beast, "Nasten!" She commanded, "Attack Procyon at once!" The beast roared yet again as it rushed down the field and fiercely punched the small white knight, the boy screaming in pain as it shot back and hit Gregory down to the ground yet again.

Gregory: 4400

The maiden laughed once again, "How was that for pain?" She said, attempting to please Gregory. She then took another card and slid it into another compartment of her duel disk. "I'll set one card face down and end my turn, your move."

Gregory quickly rose back up, barely damaged from that last attack. "You know, I was expecting a lot more after you sacrificed ten cards, did you not draw well?"

Neo thought about it, he was right, what was the point of playing Desires in that situation? She already had Contact in her hand, he was keeping track of her cards, and Contact wasn't one which she drew, so why? Was it just for the satisfaction of drawing more? It just seemed like a pointless move.

The Maiden stood there, motionless, unwilling to give some sort of response towards Gregory's question.

"Well, regardless if you drew well or not," Gregory continued, tired of waiting for the heroine to respond. "You're about to feel much worse pain!" He exclaimed, drawing another card from the top of his deck. The senior student calmly reached for a card already placed into his disk and flipped it open. "I'll activate my Quick Play Spell, Satellarknight Bridge." As the card revealed itself a beam of light came down from the ceiling, enveloping the knight that was on Gregory's field, as the beam lifted the Knight up into the sky, Gregory began to explain, "By returning my Satellarknight Rigel back to the deck, I can summon another Satellarknight from my deck with a different name," The light absorbed Rigel as a new knight came down from the same light, clad in gold and silver a new knight wielding a blade entered the field. "I summon Satellarknight Deneb to the field," Gregory said, giving the knight its name (1500/1000).

"When Deneb is summoned, I can add one tellarknight from my deck to hand." Gregory continued, pressing buttons on his duel disk until a card calmly slid out from his deck, allowing Gregory to grab it. He glanced at his cards briefly, taking more time than usual to decide how he was going to play.

After a brief pause, Gregory finally selected a card and placed it calmly onto his duel disk. "I summon Satellarknight Altair to the field." In a flash, another white knight shot down from the sky. He landed on his knees, but swiftly got up shortly, clad in white and blue Altair stood bravely next to Deneb (1700/1300). "When Altair is summoned, I'm allowed to special summon another Satellarknight from my graveyard, bringing back Procyon", Gregory said as a hole opened in the ground, out bounced back Procyon who quickly readied himself along with his fellow knights of the cosmos (1300/1200). "And when Procyon is summoned, I can send one tellarknight from my hand to the graveyard and I'm allowed to draw one!" Gregory finished as he slipped one of his cards from his hand into the graveyard compartment of his white duel disk and quickly drew another card.

"Incredible," Ruby remarked. "Three monsters just like that."

Ace nodded, "That's the power of the top two hundred," he stated. "It's about to get a lot worse however.'' He said as he turned back to the duel.

Neo began to worry, perhaps the Maiden wasn't capable. Sure, she had certainly been strong, but she just didn't seem to have the capabilities to beat someone like Gregory, who quickly regained field supremacy in less than a minute. He turned towards Ace, he probably was thinking the same thing, but Ace's face remained motionless, staring aimlessly at the duel. Neo looked down and he noticed something odd, in Ace's right hand was his phone, the tiny fingers grasped at the blue block of wires lightly as his hand laid beside his side. That in of itself isn't all that interesting, but what was interesting was the moving of Ace's thumb onto the phone, the screen invisible due to it being turned to Ace's side. He wasn't looking at it, and yet he was still doing something with his phone. Neo looked back up at the duel. Whatever Ace was doing, he wasn't trying to bring attention to himself doing it, if Neo looked at it for any longer than a second, then someone in the crowd would surely notice.

"With my three-level fours, I build the overlay network!" In an instant of uttering those words, a dark vortex opened from beneath the three monsters. The force of the vortex blew a massive gust of unrelenting wind, moving hair, clothing, and anything not attached to something into a violent frenzy. The three monsters soon were swallowed into the vortex causing it to erupt with power, soon a being began to arise from the deep vortex.

"Unyielding warrior that roams throughout the cosmos, arrive by my aid and serve me as a knight of light! I XYZ summon, Rank 4, Satellarknight Triverr!"

The being arose, revealing its heroic armor of white with gold highlights. It stood tall, with a blade made of a bright, purple plasma and a shield in the shape of a triangle. It swung its mighty blade around briefly to display its power as it finally stood still, allowing the crowd to admire its sheer beauty (2100/2500).

"Hmph," The Maiden stated in disappointment. "For a monster with such an astounding summon, it's quite weak".

"Oh, attack points are far from everything your highness! For when Triverr is summoned, all other cards on the field are returned to the hand!" Upon the explanation, the tall knight swung its blade fiercely, creating a massive gust of air, the gust blew the cards placed firmly onto the maiden's duel disk out into the air, removing the cards from the field.

"Tch!" The Maiden sounded, grabbing the cards from the air and slipping them back into her hand.

"And with your field wide open, I can have Triverr attack you directly!" Gregory declared, ordering the knight to pursue the Maiden, as it quickly rushed toward her, raising its blade.

"Don't think you can strike me that easily!" The masked heroine stated as she quickly took a card from her hand and activated it, the monster card quickly showed itself on the field. "I activate the monster Battle Fader's effect from my hand!" The monster quickly rose out from the disk, a creature reminiscent of a clock, with two dark hands with a bell at the end of one of them. As it arose, it quickly rang its bell causing the knight on the verge of striking the maiden, to be shot back into its original position. "If you target me with a direct attack, Battle Fader comes to my aid, swiftly ending your battle phase!"

Gregory chuckled yet again, "You're only delaying the inevitable,'' he said as he took a card and slipped it into the duel disk's pocket. "I set one card facedown and end my turn."

Neo watched as the Maiden swiftly drew another card, life point wise, it was even, but in terms of field, Gregory had the clear advantage. The Battle Fader play was definitely a good last-ditch effort, but that was just it, a stall, and only a one turn one at that. It was dependant on what she could do with that one turn if the stall meant anything.

"Heh," The Maiden sounded from beneath her mask. "This duel is over!" She proclaimed as she slammed a card onto her disk, "I discard two once more to summon back Darklord Nasten!" The chimera arose once again roaring proudly, the beast who seemingly never died. "He's not staying long however, for by tributing him I can summon a special servant of mine!" Nasten began to glow as he began to be sacrificed for a stronger being.

"Fallen lord of the heavens! Tormented by your fellow brethren for your desire of destruction, I beseech thee to bring victory on this battle! Darklord Desire!"

From below opened the dark vortex, to which the fallen angel rose, with wings of blood red and a face of a light green hue. The armor surrounding its demonic body was a dark blue, almost reminiscent of the darker versions of the obelisk blue uniform covered massive claws which were the replacement for the angel's hands. It rose up quickly, barely moving with the exception of the occasional movement of the arm, its yellow devilish eyes stared at Gregory's knight intensely. (3000/2800).

Right away the Maiden shouted out. "I activate Desire's effect! By losing 1000 attack, I can destroy your Triverr!" The angel quickly raised his right hand, as one of his claws shot out like a missile, swerving back and forth until it honed in on the knight, eliminating it off of the field. Gregory stood there, not intimidated at all.

"So, you destroyed my monster," he calmly noted. "But it's not like 2000 attack points is going to do much to me if you attack me now."

"You're right,'' the Maiden admitted, but then swiftly placed another card on her disk. "Then how about this?" She said as another spell appeared on the field. "I activate the card, Back-Up Rider! Which gives my Desire an extra 1500 attack points." Upon activation the normally silent angel roared as an orange aura surrounded it, further increasing his power. (3500/2800). "Intimidated now?" The Maiden rhetorically asked.

"As if," Gregory responded, despite the Maiden expecting him not to. "I have my protection." He ambiguously responded.

"Heh," The Maiden quickly said "Trying to bait me into destroying your facedowns again, huh?" She said pointing at Gregory's facedown card. "Sorry peasant, but there's no way you're fooling me." She shot her hand out, commanding the angel. "Go Desire! Show this peon some true pain!" Instantly, the angel flew towards the student raising its massive claws, going in for a powerful swipe.

"And do you think I would honestly try the same trick twice?" Gregory said as the angel approached. He gave out a huge grin as he shouted out. "I KNEW YOU WOULD THINK THAT! GO MAGIC CYLINDER!" Out from below raised out a tube, a scarlet red color surrounded the large three-dimensional object. It carried holes on both sides, it stood in front of the angel on the attack, as the angel swiped at the tube, it spun around like some kind of turbine, the force of the impact, generating a massive amount of green energy, as it shot right back out, the maiden having no time to react as the beam enveloped her. Neo jumped to the right, just barely dodging the beam.

Maiden: 800

The laser continued through the room, before hitting the opposite side of the room, causing massive cracks in the tough concrete to form. The maiden came into view once again, bruises all across her body, she was panting, crouched down after taking a beam to the face, she was overall fine. The mask, however, was not, as it was cracked, one crack went down right in the middle, going down right to the center, not fully breaking it. Another crack came in, causing a small bit of the mask, the right eye, falling down to the ground. Neo and Ace quickly exchanged looks, silently questioning whether or not it was right to check on her. Hesitantly, Ace gave a silent nod, as the two walked up slowly, worried about her condition. "Hey, you okay?" Neo said as he walked to the front of her, to see if there were more injuries he wasn't noticing. Ace soon walked to stand next to Neo. As they looked at the Maiden, her eye revealed, Neo quickly jumped back. What appeared, was perhaps more disturbing than the eye that was placed upon the mask.

Massive in pupil, it was a bright amber colored eye, perhaps you could even make it out as golden. The golden pupil also had black dashes in it, contrasting the bright colored pupil. It looked unnatural, almost supernatural. The eye even seemed to be faintly glowing in the barely lit room. It was an eye of malice, darkness, and power. It rattled with anger, furious to have been disrespected by falling for such a simple trap.

Ace, while not falling back like Neo, still had a face of unease, but Neo was a lot more frightened. Neo felt an extreme sense of unease wash over him when glancing upon the eye. It was something that felt so unnatural, and yet was something so believable at the same time. It was like he's seen it before, when in fact he's never seen such an odd discrepancy from reality in his life. He slowly stepped back as the Maiden grumbled, rising to her feet.

"I'm fine!" She angrily responded limping past Neo with her head down, to not reveal what Neo had seen. While passing Neo, she bumped into him with her shoulder as if she was threatening him not to question the obvious abnormality, or she would silence him by force.

She stood back at her original position, the crowd laughing. She reached for her right jean pocket and took out a perfectly pure, white handkerchief, which she quickly tucked underneath the hole and placing it in between her eye and the open gap, sealing the eye once again.

Gregory continued to laugh "You awake now, sleeping beauty?" He said, mocking her claim to fame. "Looks like your time on the throne is just about over!"

She growled, acting more like an angry beast rather than royalty. "You know, I've just about had it with you,'' she murmured. Raging, she slipped another card into her hand. "I thought I'd play with you a little longer, but playtime's over!" She said as she began to slam the card onto her disk. "I'll end this, with just one card!"

Suddenly a massive slam on the metal door sounded out, followed by the scream of an adult. "Academy Police, open up!" the man shouted before the doors slammed open, revealing roughly thirty officers, wearing a blue buttoned-up uniform, now covered up by a bulletproof vest. They rushed in, coming to the rescue.

"Shit!" Gregory exclaimed as he put his cards he was carrying in his pocket and began to make a sprint to the door, an idea that many of the students had, as they too began to make a break for it. The police, however, were prepared, as few men soon rushed to the entrance and pulled out a real pistol, the silver weapon shining in the light from the industrial light above. "Hands in the air!" one yelled, causing all of the students rushing to come to a halt, realizing the gravity of the situation, as they instantly shot their hands out. As much as they wanted to be perceived as tough guys, there was no way they would risk their life, not even Gregory.

Neo, Ace, and Ruby grouped up, standing beside each other with their hands up as the police began to round the students up, calming the situation down.

Neo turned back around, the Maiden who was there seeming seconds ago had vanished from sight with no remnant of her except for the shattered eye from her mask. Stepping back slowly Neo knelt down and picked the shard up, quickly slipping it in his pocket and then shooting his hands up once more. Even with the Maiden gone, she remained in his mind, the sight of the eye haunting Neo in his mind. He turned back around, the police were now urging them to follow them outside. He had no idea what time it was now, but all he knew that it was unbelievably late, as he allowed his eyes to rest, finally resting as he sat in the police vehicle, the underground dungeon, now swiftly ended.


	9. Breakdown

Neo sat on the hard, shiny wooden bench, placed to the left of a crimson red door in a series of deep blue doors. The hallway sat on the edge of the building, with a massive glass window being on the other side of the doors. The sunlight seeped into the hallway, blinding Neo's eyes anytime he tried to look up, it made him keep his head down, staring aimlessly at the teal tiled-flooring, the sound of chatter and printers filling his ears.

He turned his eyes to look at the door beside him, a golden plaque placed on the top of it read "Principal of Duel Academy, Alexis Rhodes-Yuki". Neo sighed as he turned back to his original position.

How long had he been here now? Three hours? Four? Doing nothing but sitting at this bench waiting to be called in. They had brought him back to his dorm room for him to sleep, only to wake him up six hours later and drag him over to the administrative building. Ruby told him that she had to do the same thing over text, but his phone had died a long time ago.

The last person who went in had yet to come out, it was some Slifer red guy he had seen around. However, like most students, he didn't dare talk to Neo.

Despite having the past three hours to think, Neo's heart was still pounding out of anticipation. His mind abuzz with thoughts about ways to escape; maybe he could beat up some janitor and steal his uniform, maybe he could make a break for it, or maybe he could break the massive glass window in front of him and escape into the woods, but this was an island. Even if he could escape temporarily, there were only so many places he could go. This stupid prison island. If only he could go back in time and tell himself to rip up those acceptance papers before Dad saw it.

There was no escape from this. Not anymore. He had to face the consequences.

The sound of footsteps on the hard white tile approached, the footfalls ringing out like the beating of a drum. Neo looked to the right as Ace walked solemnly toward the bench. He must've been called in as well. His face gave off a serious expression with his eyes staring straight, but the lines beneath his eyes was clear evidence of his exhaustion.

"Hey," Neo quietly said as Ace closed in on the bench.

"Hi," Ace said as he approached the opposite side of the bench and sat down. Shortly after, he took out his phone to kill time. Neo stared at Ace, with nothing better to do than watch him look at articles which he couldn't read from that distance.

Neo paused, letting silence fill the room, as he stared intently at Ace. Ace continued to look at the phone, until he peered towards Neo, to see him watching.

"Do you mind?" Ace snapped.

Neo snapped out of the trance "Oh, uh," he turned the opposite direction. "Yeah, sorry."

Seeing Neo turn around, Ace lowered his head back down to his phone, the tapping of his finger being the only sound. Neo sighed as he looked at the window, viewing the autumn leaves falling from the trees. Fall was coming.

This, however, could only entertain him for so long, as he turned to Ace once more after pausing for only a few seconds. "They, uh, bring you in here too?" Neo inquired.

"Mhm," Ace duly noted, not even giving Neo eye contact.

"Yeah, it seems like they're bringing in everyone involved." Neo continued.

"Mhm,"Ace repeated once again, not paying attention.

Neo paused to see if Ace had anything to say, but after a few seconds of silence, Neo sighed and turned back. He was terrible at small talk; no wonder he really didn't have any friends.

Ace peered at Neo. Seeing him intentionally avoiding eye contact, he sighed, slipped his phone into his pocket, and turned to Neo.

"You've been here awhile, huh?" Ace said.

"Yeah.."

"Your phone dead?"

A nod once again.

"What's the point of us even coming?" Ace questioned. "I'm sure they have plenty of other students they can receive witnesses from."

"I dunno," Neo responded. "At this point, I'm sure a lot of the reports sound pretty familiar." He turned to Ace quickly. "Should I mention it?"

"Mention what? The eye?"

Neo nodded.

Ace turned back straight and pondered it, "Probably not worth it," he finally answered. "They probably wouldn't believe us anyways."

"Guess so," Neo said, thinking about the eye, the image of it still bright in his mind. "It's weird, isn't it?"

"Obviously," Ace said. "No normal being has glowing golden eyes."

"Well I don't know," Neo replied. "Maybe it's a rare trait or something."

"Don't act stupid. There's no way something like that would be natural," Ace turned back to his phone.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Neo conceded. "It was way too weird. We gotta tell someone about it though, there's no way we can just keep this to ourselves." He continued.

Ace turned back up, seemingly more annoyed now that Neo had decided to continue talking. "Sorry, can we just, like, not talk for a bit?"

Neo moved his head back a bit, finding such a statement odd. "I'm sorry?" Neo said, confused about why Ace was so insistent on not talking to him. "Should I not be talking about this?"

"Honestly," Ace looked at Neo "I'd rather you not talk, period."

"The hell's your problem?" Neo said, annoyed by Ace's rude statement. "I was just trying to talk to you. Is that so wrong?"

"Yes, it is,'' Ace said, raising his voice a little. "It's rude because I, frankly, don't want to talk to you, and yet, you're annoying me by trying to talk to me with this pointless back chat all because you can't entertain yourself."

Neo raised his voice to match Ace's "What do you have against me?"

Ace turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. "You know Neo, before yesterday, I thought of you just like everyone here thinks of you," he lectured. "I thought that you were just some idiot who thought he could get through this school off of just name recognition alone. Trying to just use that last name of yours to glide through life, and that's probably what you wanted others to believe." Ace then turned to him, his piercing eyes staring straight into Neo's. "But yesterday, you slipped up. The way you acted during that duel proved to me that you're not an idiot. You saw everything, didn't you? Every move Gregory was planning, every mistake that girl would fall into. You spoke out, told her to take such an unbelievable gamble, and you were 100% correct."

"So what if I did?" Neo slowly murmured, attempting to defend himself. "It's not like something like that was hard to see. You probably could've deduced it as well."

"Perhaps," Ace conceded "But the fact that you agreed proves to me you're not an idiot. Now idiots are fine, I can simply ignore them, but you're something else, something that I can't ignore. You, Neo Yuki, are a coward." Ace pulled back out his phone, flicking it on. "And I hate cowards, so do me a favor and go back to wallowing on how hard you have it".

Neo twitched, his legs shaking. Neo muttered, "Me… A coward?" He shot out of his seat. "You think I'm a coward?!" Neo yelled.

Ace slammed his phone onto the chair and stood up, facing Neo. The two sized each other up. "I do, and you know why? It's because you're not hopeless! The fact that you have at least some dueling skill proves to me you aren't! You could be dueling, you could probably beat a good majority of those people ranked the same, hell, you could probably even reach Obelisk level if you tried hard enough! And yet you sit there with your talent and doing nothing with it! You act like you're absolutely hopeless, like your sad state is because of some unfortunate chain of events, but it's because of your own doing. You choose to sit there. That pisses me off more than anything!"

"Scared? I'm not the one who's scared here!" Neo defended. "If anything I should be brave for what I'm doing. Do you know what kind of shit I go through all because I'm not like my parents? That I'm not a Duelist? It's honestly a miracle that I didn't cave in to my family's expectations, unlike you! You duel all for the sake of that last name! Because you're a Princeton. Following your family's beliefs instead of following your own - that's being scared!"

"You little-," Ace's left arm shot up to grab Neo's shirt, he then lifted his right hand in the shape of a fist. "Don't go acting like you know about my family life!" He shouted. "It's none of your business telling me what I should do with my life!"

Neo took his two hands and grabbed Ace's dark blue vest firmly. "Don't you go acting like you know my family either! You have absolutely no right to tell me about what to do with my family!"

The door to the principal's office shot open behind them…

Neo and Ace paused as another boy walked out. A Slifer red with messy but short brown hair strolled out as he stared at the two, their hands still grabbing each other's shirts.

Ace and Neo simultaneously let go. The boy slowly walked past, his old black sneakers squealed as he walked past the two, staring wide-eyed at both of them.

Wearing a brown button up shirt with an orange tie, the auburn-haired staff member walked out from the hallway and turned to Neo.

"Mr. Yuki," she calmly stated. "The principal will see you now."

"Oh uh, yeah," Neo said as he calmed himself down. He looked back briefly.

Ace stood there, his face stern with hints of anger still as he crossed his arms and sat back down. Neo sighed. He let him rile him up. He was usually able to remain calm, but he wasn't exactly in the best mood at the moment.

The door closed as Neo entered the small carpeted hallway full of important admin members in offices connected to it. The woman walked to the left of Neo and approached an open door leading to an office. "The principal is at the end of the hall," she stated. Neo nodded as the woman walked into the office, the carpet muffling her steps.

Each step he took felt small. The thought of talking to his mother after so long and under these circumstances was nerve wracking. Maybe he was instinctively slowing himself down, trying to prolong the inevitable.

He looked up and saw the gold plaque, the guard staring at him menacingly as though laughing at him for what was about to occur.

He sighed as he slowly opened the door, it creaked as it revealed a massive office. It was bold and big with pure, white tile floors and a massive glass wall behind the small mahogany desk. Behind the desk sat the principal herself.

Clad in a maroon uniform, her short golden hair remained still as she looked solemnly at her computer monitor, typing away. Neo stood there as the door closed shut, ringing out into Alexis's ear. She glanced up briefly, her hazel eyes staring intently at Neo, but then quickly looking back at her computer as she continued to type. "Sit down Neo, just give me a minute."

Not making a single sound or motion, Neo obeyed, walking across the tile floor and slipping into the wooden chair placed right in front of her desk. It had been roughly 3 years since he'd seen her in person. Nothing looked different except for her clothing.

She had always been working, even before they left. She kept herself to a home office most hours with the exception of the early morning and late night.

He would come into her office often either to just say hi or because Jaden had sent him in there to solve his issues with any homework, as he himself didn't have the answer anytime past fourth grade. She would sit there, just as she sat now, working away typing at a document that never seemed satisfactory. Besides her hardworking nature, he knew little of his mother.

Neo remained silent as the sound of rapid typing echoed.

Neo's hand began to twitch from underneath the desk, still anxious and angry. He probably should be the one to talk first, but he didn't want to.

He really didn't want to.

She continued to type as she glanced at Neo. His face was stern but restless. She turned back and slowed down her typing. "So… Are you going to tell me what happened?" She said casually, as if she already knew what he was going to say.

Neo sighed. "I mean, I can," Neo said, avoiding the topic. "But I doubt it will be anything new," He avoided eye contact and added, "Three years, and that's what you first say to me?"

"In other circumstances it wouldn't be," she replied. "But you're not here to say hi."

Neo looked back at her "You're not happy to see me?"

"Not like this," she said. "Would you rather me pat you on the back for getting arrested for roaming during after school hours?"

"I would, actually," Neo muttered, slouching on the chair.

More typing rang out as the two ceased to talk. The tension kept Neo shut for a while. The work Alexis had seemed to be more pressing than a conversation with her son.

"Look, this is getting nowhere," Neo said as he stood up from the chair. "I'm sure you've heard the same thing several times now. So, I'm gonna get out of your busy schedule".

Alexis sighed as she suddenly stopped typing and turned directly to face Neo. "Sit back down Neo," she said sternly. "You're not getting out of this that easy."

Neo sighed as he sat back down quickly. "I assume Ruby already told you," he began. "We walked into it midway and tried to get out. I didn't do anything."

"That's not what I called you in here for," Alexis said as she pressed a button on her computer. In an instant, the printer on a small table across the room began to whirl. She got up and walked towards it, her maroon heels clicking as she grabbed a small set of papers the printer had shot out.

She walked back to her desk and sat down, sliding a paper over to Neo. "Explain this to me."

It was a copy of Neo's profile online, his student ID, ranking, and grades. A's and B's all around English, Math, History, PE were fine, but the two outliers were the two D's in Dueling 101 and Deckbuilding 101. "What, the D's?" Neo looked back up at the Principal, despite knowing clearly that such was her topic of discussion.

"What else?" She said clearly, aware that Neo already knew what she was referring to.

"I don't know what to tell you," Neo said as he slouched back in the chair. "I've turned in everything, but the tests are hard for me, I'm not good at those topics".

Alexis frowned, "Neo, I know it's been awhile, but I'm sure you know: what's my number one rule?"

"Don't lie…" Neo muttered. "I'm not lying. It's not like those preliminary dueling classes you made me take. It's a lot harder".

"It's not that it's harder. You're not trying," Alexis replied, absolutely sure that was what was going on.

"Our entrance exam is an extremely hard true or false based test. Our best score this year was an 82%," Alexis explained. "If someone were to guess blindly at such a test, do you know what score that person would get?"

"A fifty," Neo responded.

"So explain to me why you got a perfect 0%," she questioned as she slid him a copy of his test results. It was like she had said: a 0/436. "The preliminary questions are basically free ones as well," she continued. "The admission board spent a while talking about it, and they concluded that the only way a perfect 0% was possible was if that person knew exactly what each answer was and intentionally picked the wrong one,"

"So you got me in through your influence?" Neo said, giving a weirded-out look.

"I didn't," she replied. "The admission committee is a completely separate branch kept in the Synchro Dimension far from here to prevent bias. They discuss these things separately. I simply confirm their choices."

"The point is, Neo, that you're better than this. I know you are. You need to go talk to Professor Misawa and see if you can retake those tests."

"What? No," Neo said, offended. "My grade is what it is. I don't wanna beg for extra credit."

"Neo, if you don't, you could get kicked out," Alexis said. "You're going to have to if you want to stay in."

"Yeah, I know!" Neo got out of the chair and slammed the desk. "Have you ever thought that I want to get kicked out?! I hate this stupid school! I have no friends, no common interests with anyone, no nothing! I want to get out of here!"

"Neo, that's not true," Alexis cut him off "You-"

"You should've just let me fail! I never cared to go here! I only chose to on some stupid thought that it'd make Dad happy, but it doesn't make me happy! Nothing you guys do to try to better my life makes me happy! I don't like dueling, I want nothing to do with it! It's my life, stop trying to make it yours!"

Neo's cries resounded in the room, bringing the conversation to a halt as both Alexis and Neo took in what had just been said.

Neo's face of anger quickly switched to sincere regret as he slumped back down into his seat. He looked down at the ground astonished at what he had just said. "Sorry…"

No one spoke a word for what seemed like an hour. No motion, no typing, no talking, no clicking - all that was left to fill the void was the faint whirl of the computer. He kept his head down, ashamed. He didn't want to say anything.

What else was he supposed to say?

"Can-Can I go now?" Neo quietly asked the figure holding him here.

Alexis sighed, "Okay… just make sure to ask Professor Misawa about some extra credit".

Neo nodded as he finally stood. He reached for his pocket, fishing for a bit before taking out a card. The card drifted down the smooth wood desk until it stopped by Alexis's left arm. Neos, now that was an old card.

"You can give that to Allie or something. I don't want it…" Neo said quietly as he turned around and headed for the door. He grabbed the handle of the wood door and proceeded to pull it open. Neo stepped into the hall.

"Neo," Alexis called. He turned around slowly, his face of an embarrassed, broken teen.

"I love you."

"Yeah... Okay."

He closed the door shut saying only those words before leaving his mother yet again. Alexis sighed. Was it truly right to push him on this path? Sure, she had not been the one to make the decision to admit him, but she still could have refused to. She didn't know who he was, nor did it seem that Neo knew who he was either. He was lost. She could try all she wanted to push him down a certain path, but ultimately he would have to be the one to find his way.

She stared at the card and it stared back.

Neos, the guardian that Jaden had entrusted to protect his son, asked if she was okay with this, with him being alone with no protector.

"So," Alexis asked the spirit. "You're just going to stay here?"

A knock on the door rang out, "Ms. Yuki,"

"Yes?"

"Ace Princeton is waiting outside," the office worker stated.

"Send him in," she said.

Her work was never finished.

She turned back to see the card's response. The wood of her desk was clean, the card gone. She has had some strange experiences in her life. This was the first in a very long time, and yet after experiencing such a strange chain of events, all she could do was smile at the sight of the card's answer.

"I didn't think so."


	10. Chapter 10: Group Discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! Here is chapter 10 in its entirety! This chapter is massive, nearly 10,000 words, I greatly apologize for the length, but I didn't want to cut the chapter in half and force you to wait again for the next release. Anyways, here is the chapter. I really hope you enjoy it! Please leave a comment on any criticism, it really helps me improve as well as know that people are enjoying the content.

Neo stared at the jumble of words in front of him. A mix of random dueling terms and ordinary words were presented to him, and expected to understand.

"Short Answer- In a brief paragraph, explain the mechanics of quick effects and the many variations of it."

"Short Answer," Yeah, okay, because that can definitely be explained in a brief paragraph.

Neo looked to the left of the large classroom. The room was empty, no one on the hardwood desks, no sounds besides the ticking of the clock and the typing of Professor Misawa, who sat in the front, blazing through academic papers in minutes. Ones which probably took hours for the student to write.

He looked back at the problem, the last one in a series of relatively simple questions. Neo began to write, swiftly scribbling for an eternity. One word, two, three- wait no, missed a comma, go back. Okay, next sentence-wait no, go back; the wording is horrible on that, rework it. Do that again for the next word. Next sentence, next paragraph.

In an exclamation of completion, Neo dramatically dropped his pencil on the desk. The sound of the clack echoed through the empty lecture hall. Misawa looked up as the boy stood up from his seat. He gathered his papers and then went back quickly to write his name. Footsteps rang out as the boy came down the staircase and up to the small wooden desk placed squarely in the center of the room.

As Neo came up to the desk, Misawa brought out an old silver stopwatch, ticking in his pocket. Neo placed the test answers and the long scantron onto the desk. In an instant, Misawa commanded the stopwatch to cease, the watch responding with a click. He looked at the clock.

"36 minutes and 54 seconds, for 75 questions and a few short answers," Misawa remarked. "Seems pretty rushed."

"It was pretty easy as long as you knew the vocabulary," Neo shrugged. "And most of them were basic vocab to boot, so it wasn't too bad, all the ones I didn't know, I just knocked out the answers I knew were wrong and guessed based on that."

"Hmm," Misawa pondered as he took the sheet of paper and slipped it into a giant machine. The machine began to whirl as it ate the answer sheet and began to process. "Word of advice for the future, Mr. Yuki: Never call a test easy until you have the score to back it up." He then grabbed the short answer sheet and began to read. Neo watched as the professor's eyes sped through each and every sentence. He flipped through as the machine continued to run.

A sudden halt of the sound and the launch of the paperback out indicated the machine's completed task. The professor paid no mind to it as he continued to read and process. Finally, as he finished the last page, the silence broke.

"Not bad, certainly better than a majority of Slifer students, your sentence structure could use a bit of work, some of it I had to re-read, but you do have a majority of the facts down," The professor commented. He then put the paper down and went to the machine, grabbing the multiple-choice sheet that had just been corrected.

"88," He stated. He placed both papers down and concluded, "Yes, I believe this is acceptable."

Neo sighed as his heartbeat slowed down, the anxiety of a test finally ending.

"Sooo, do I get the extra credit for that?"

A shake of the head by the professor swiftly answered the question.

"Oh no, it's gonna be much harder than that," He declared. "That was just one of the practice finals I give for your class; I wanted to see if you knew the material."

With a click of the mouse, the machine once again roared, shooting out two more warm sheets of paper. Like a machine, the professor effortlessly grabbed the two sheets, slid them across his desk into the black stapler, and slammed it together. He took the packet, flipped it around, and placed it on the desk. Neo bent down to take a look at it.

"Here's how this is going to work," Misawa began. "From now on, you'll be doing not only the assignments from Dueling 101, but assignments and tests from the class up, Critical Deckbuilding 205, do those assignments, and your grade should shoot up in no time, fail, and your grade will look much worse".

Neo looked at the assignment list; each assignment from today to December was clearly seen. He looked back up.

"Wait, how am I supposed to get the material? I can't come in for class.", Neo questioned.

"Communication, Mr. Yuki," Misawa swiftly answered.

"Success in academics and in life depends on communication. If one fails to understand human communication, they fail to understand everything else with the world. Which brings me to your first assignment," he transitioned to the next point.

"Your first assignment is a group essay. I'll put you with Group G, they were short a member anyways, so this smoothes it out for them. The deadline for that is Friday by 5pm."

"Friday?" Neo questioned as he pulled out his phone to check the day. "Wait, today's Wednesday!"

"Correct, And?" Misawa duly noted as he continued to type on his computer.

"That's ridiculous! How am I supposed to finish it in two days with a group I don't know! They probably have been already working on it, too, so throwing me in totally throws them off as well!"

"You want points, don't you?" Misawa rhetorically questioned, pausing to look up at Neo.

Neo stammered, then sighed. He was right; beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Yeah...okay, who are my partners?".

Misawa pulled up a page on his computer and scrolled down to check. "Mr...Sapphire Anderson, Ms. Melina Truesdale..annnnd Mr. Ace Princeton,"

Neo's eyes widened, "You have got to be kidding me."

* * *

"That's awesome!" Sapphire exclaimed, pausing his work of stocking the shelves to exclaim. "This project should be easy with you!"

"Wait, you haven't started?" Neo questioned as he sat behind the register, counting cash. It was late at night now, only 15 minutes until the clock struck midnight and his shift ended.

Sapphire shrugged, "I don't think so, I haven't heard anything from Ace or Melina yet, so I just assume not."

Neo gave a look of concern as a tap of the shoulder called Neo to turn his head back. Ruby mouthed two words to Neo with a face of concern as she passed behind him with another box of stock. It was silent, but it was apparent what she was messaging to him "You're screwed."

Neo took a deep breath as he processed everything and worked everything out in his head.

"Okay, we need to cram this," He stated as he pulled out his phone and began to run through contacts. "Do you have Melina and Ace's number? We need to have just one night where we just do all of it. It'll be one hell of a night, but that's all we got at this point".

Sapphire, too pulled out his phone " I mean, I don't think so," He responded. He looked up and looked at Ruby, still carrying a box over to a shelf. "Hey Ruby, don't you have Melina's number?"

"Huh?" Ruby quickly responded, snapping her head toward Sapphire. She turned around fast, her hands slipping from the box full of books which dropped right onto Ruby's foot. The girl yelped as the books slammed onto her foot. She lifted her foot up and began to hop.

Sapphire laughed, "Jeez, are you alright?" He questioned, attempting to sound concerned, but he couldn't help but smile and chuckle a bit.

Ruby lowered her foot, still in pain and dazed from the sudden impact. "What did you say again?"

"Melina's number," Sapphire reiterated. "Don't you have it?"

"Well um, y-yeah I-I do," Ruby responded, flustered. "It's- uh ancient though, she might have changed it."

Neo shrugged, "Might as well try it; the worst that can happen is we get no response."

Ruby nodded and pulled out her phone; she scrolled through contacts before copying and pasting Melina's.

Neo's phone vibrates in his jean pocket. He looked down at it and looked back up at Ruby. "Thanks," he said. "I'll try to call her later."

Ruby nods and takes a sigh of relief, calming down as she begins to lift the box once more.

"Alrighty!" Sapphire exclaimed. "All we need now is Ace's, and we'll be set!"

"Yeah, the issue is where we're going to find that." Neo pondered, walking towards the counter and into the small closet. He stepped inside and pulled out an old broom, the wooden handle frayed with potential splinters.

"Well, normally, that'd be hard," Ruby chimed in. She took the box and placed it on an empty shelf. "But I have a gut feeling…"

A light tap on the glass door rang out into the small store. The three workers quickly turned around to see who rang. As if on cue, there stood Ace Princeton in the same dark blue uniform he always wore, even on off days. Ruby smirked as she strolled to the door and pulled it open.

"Right on time!" Ruby welcomed Ace in. He stepped inside the shop, silently looking around and scratching his head. The room filled with silence as Ace continued to not say anything. He gave a stern face, and yet there was a tinge of embarrassment with his posture.

"You're lost again, huh?" Ruby asked, already knowing the answer. Ace sighed, putting his hand down, and nodding solemnly. Ruby chuckled at his embarrassment.

"Dude, are you serious? This is the third time, I sent you directions yesterday; I even drew a bold red arrow for you to follow!" Ruby exclaimed. "How are you this terrible at directions?"

Ace shot his head back up at Ruby, his face; red with anger and embarrassment. "Sh- Shut up, okay?" he replied. "You're the only store open this late! You're the only people I can ask!"

Sapphire held in a laugh, only to then let it out in a series of loud chuckles. Ace snapped towards Sapphire, "What's so funny?!"

Sapphire calmed himself down, wiping the tears of laughter off his eyes. "Dude, you should see your face! You look like you're gonna cry!"

"Oh yeah?" Ace said, rolling up his sleeves. "Why don't I make you cry?". He stepped closer to Sapphire as he lifted one of his arms.

"Alright, calm down; we were just messin' with you," Ruby chimed in, attempting to prevent a fight. "You actually came in at a good time; Neo and Sapphire needed to get in contact with you for some kind of project."

"Project?" Ace said, calming down. "Which one?"

"The Deckbuilding essay, remember?" Sapphire replied. "The one with Melina? Due Friday?"

Ace's eyes widened, "Shit, that's this week?" he said. "We haven't even started that yet!".

"Mhm," Sapphire nodded but then smirked. "Fret not, though! For our savior, Mr. Neo Yuki is here!" Sapphire proclaimed, showing off Neo Yuki, giving a look of confusion. "Turns out, Neo's gonna be joining our group!"

"Extra Credit," Neo replied, swiftly answering any question of why.

"Great, more work to do" Ace rolled his eyes.

"Look, like it or not, we need to get this in," Neo said. "Trust me, if I had the choice, I wouldn't want to do this either."

"Yeah, whatever, when do you wanna meet to do this?" Ace said, pulling out his phone to check his calendar.

"Tomorrow would be good for me," Neo replied. "I can check in with Melina to see if that's okay."

"Tomorrow, right after school?" Sapphire asked.

"I can do around 8ish", Ace said. "I have a lot of duels queued up after school."

"Works for me.", Neo said. "I'll pick up some Coffee and chips or something after school."

"Sounds good," Sapphire replied. "Where at?"

"Is my dorm okay?" Neo said. "I'm the only one in there, so it should be pretty peaceful."

"You don't have a roommate?" Ace questioned.

Neo shook his head.

Ace chuckled as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Huh? The hell's that supposed to mean?" Neo said, aggravated.

"Nothing, yeah, that's fine," Ace said, not wanting to argue with Neo.

Sapphire chuckled. "Do you need me and Neo to pick you up and walk you there?"

"I can walk there on my own!" Ace shouted.

"Okaaaay, but if you get lost, I'm gonna laugh," Sapphire smirked.

"You people are insufferable," Ace said as he stormed to the front of the door and swung it open. "I'll just wait for you guys to close up."

The door slammed shut, filling the room with silence.

"What's wrong with him?" Ruby asked, turning back to the box and beginning to stock the shelves with more magazines and booklets. "He seemed angrier than usual."

Neo shrugged, "Beats me, I really don't care if he's angrier or not. He could disappear tomorrow, and I still wouldn't care".

Ruby paused and turned to Neo, "Okay, now what's wrong with you?" she said, offended that Neo seemed to hate Ace. "You know, just because your dads hated each other doesn't mean you two have to as well."

Neo twitched and paused before turning to look directly at Ruby, "Hey, he started it alright?".

"I don't care who started it," Ruby said, raising her tone. "You two need to figure it out because your guy's constant annoyance with each other is making me annoyed now too." Ruby turned back to empty the rest of the box. "Now shut up and start sweeping; it's past closing time.".

Neo sighed and turned back to sweep the floor. "Alright."

* * *

Neo laid down in his bed, his hands under his head as he stared at the bed above him. The room was dark, the blinds closed, the lights off. He took a deep breath and tried to close his eyes as the darkness enveloped Neo's sight. He saw nothing and heard only his own slow and steady breaths. Neo began to drift off into sleep.

Suddenly Neo heard more than just his breath as the echoing sound of heels began to ring in his ear. From the darkness came a shadowy figure of a girl. The girl came closer and closer as the sound of her steps rang louder and louder, and Neo's breath drew quicker and quicker. Neo couldn't make out a face despite how much closer she got. She remained cloaked in darkness, her face covered in a shadowy veil.

As she drew even closer, the girl opened her eyes. There they were. Her eyes glowed a bright gold hue. Her eyes stared into his. Unblinking, unrelenting, filled with pure anger and malice. They pulsated as the girl approached Neo until all he could see were the two eyes of the supreme princess staring deep into his soul.

A knock on the door rang out, and Neo instantly woke back up; he was hyperventilating. He stared back at the top of the bunk bed, the sight of the eye still clear in his mind. He took a deep breath, allowing himself to slow back down and process the view.

Another knock on the door implored Neo to get up. Neo obeyed, stepping out of bed and onto the hardwood. He rubbed his eyes as he stepped towards the door. Next to the door, he flipped a switch which instantly filled the room with light. Finally, Neo answered the door's call. Turning the handle and allowing the warm summer wind to seep into the room. Wearing a pair of ripped jeans and a worn-out yellow shirt, Melina stood in front of the door. She smiled and waved.

"Hey Neo! It's been a hot minute; how've you been?", She asked in an upbeat tone.

"Hey," Neo said, slowly lifting his hand up as well. "I've been good."

"Good!" Melina quickly replied before pausing for a second. "That's good."

The two paused for a bit and looked away from each other. The rustling of trees and movement of the nearby waves filled the otherwise awkward silence.

"Soooo," Melina broke the silence. "You uh, gonna let me in?"

Neo snapped out of his trance. "Oh! Yeah, go ahead; it's a little messy though", he said, stepping out of Melina's way. "You're the first one here."

Melina stepped into the room and observed it. Aside from the slightly stuffed hamper in the left corner of the room, it was pretty well kept. Next to the hamper stood a light wood dresser that matched the floor and the desk placed directly next to the triple bunk bed, the usual room layout. On the desk sat his white laptop, plugged into the outlet underneath the desk. His blue phone sat next to it, plugged into the computer through a cord. Other than that, the room was pretty empty. The only other piece of furniture besides the standard things was a blue beanbag made out of a rough fabric sitting in another corner of the room.

"What do you mean? Seems pretty clean to me", Melina noted. "Trust me, I've seen a lot of other rooms that are much worse." She walked towards the bean bag and dropped her backpack beside it. She sat down onto the bean bag, the bag molding to her as she unzipped her backpack. Out came a bag of chips. "I stopped by the Plaza and picked up a bag of chips," she said, handing Neo the new pack.

"Oh cool, thanks," Neo replied, taking the bag and walking towards his desk, dropping it next to his laptop. "I also asked Sapphire to pick up some bottled waters over by Lyman's too, so we'll have drinks as well. He should be here any minute now".

"Cool," Melina repeated as she took out a glasses case and opened up a pair of silver square glasses. She placed the case down and began to fiddle with her eyes before taking out her contacts. Carefully, she placed them in the case and slipped on her glasses. "I suppose we should get a headstart then," she noted before reaching for her backpack once more and hulling out a giant laptop and placing it on the hardwood. Neo stared at it; it was massive. It barely even qualified as a laptop. It looked like it was created by an alien race, with flashing lights and a sleek silver design. It was one of those computers you see people carry around to play video games on; they're always extremely noticeable.

"I wasn't aware that you gamed," Neo commented. Melina looked down at the laptop as it began to whirl and shrugged.

"Not really, I mean, I do play Duel Monsters Online, like most people on the face of the planet and a couple other games, but nothing super demanding," she said before looking back at the screen and rapidly tapping on the keyboard, unlocking it. "I just appreciate having powerful components, I guess." She looked up to Neo rapidly, her face showing a bit of excitement. "Like, did you know? That I can run 20 programs and have over a hundred web tabs open, and I'd still be fine?'.

Neo chuckled as he slipped into his desk chair and rotated around to face Melina. "Why would you need that many open, though?" he said smiling.

"I dunno," Melina replied. "But I can do it. I dunno, I think that's interesting, how crazy technology can be".

"Our society has literally invented a way to project images of monsters and be able to interact with them, and you think that's impressive?" Neo said.

"Technology, in general, is impressive," Melina said, smiling. "Computers, holograms, cars, motorcycles, everything is pretty interesting when you think about what was to go into it for it to be achieved."

Neo shrugged. "I mean, if you put it that way…" he noted. He went back to his computer and pulled open a tab. "Did you get my email giving you access to the shared document?"

"Yeah, I saw it," Melina said, also pulling up the tab, "I saw You and Ace working on it a bit last night; you both were up pretty late," she remarked.

"Yeah, I haven't been able to sleep all that well recently, so I figured that I'd get some work done."

"Trouble sleeping, huh?" she inquired. "What, something on your mind?". Neo stopped typing and pondered it. In his mind, that sight still filled his thoughts, the dark golden eyes.

"Something like that, yeah," he finally said. He reached for a plastic water bottle on the corner of his desk. He spun the lid open before pausing to take a sip.

"Mmmmmm?", Melina said, stopping her typing to look at Neo with a smug face. "You got a crush or something?"

Immediately Neo spit out his water, the liquid shot from his mouth onto the computer screen. He coughed as Melina began to laugh.

"Could you not?", Neo said frustrated.

"Oh, so you do?" Melina said, now playing entirely into the bit. She chuckled as she reached into her jean pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," she said, tossing the cloth over to Neo. Neo caught the light fabric effortlessly, immediately using it to dry off his laptop. "Still though, you should try going to bed earlier; sleep is important," she said, going back to typing.

Another knock on the door stopped the banter. "I got it," Melina said, placing her massive laptop down and walking towards the door. She swung it open, revealing Sapphire and Ace, both with backpacks strapped on their back. Sapphire carrying a set of bottled waters.

"Hey, hey, Look! I found this lost dog!" Sapphire said with a massive smile on his face. He was pointing at Ace. "Can we keep him? Can we?".

"Oh, give it a rest already!", Ace said shoving Sapphire into the doorway.

Sapphire stumbled into the room; swinging back, he stabilized himself before smiling and looking at Neo.

"Dude, you should've seen him. He was outside pacing, trying to find where to go. He looked like a kid lost in a store", Sapphire said, still unable to keep a straight face.

"I thought someone couldn't be more annoying than Neo, and yet here you are! How did someone like you make it into Obelisk?"

"I'm right here, you know!" Neo exclaimed as the two stepped into the room.

Sapphire placed down the bottled waters and turned to Ace. "Push-ups, sit-ups, and plenty of dueling!" he said, lifting his left arm up and flexing his muscles. For as annoying as Sapphire can sometimes be, he did seem to be quite in shape.

"Yeah, right, I could beat you in an arm wrestle any day of the week" Ace rolled his eyes, placing his backpack beside the door.

"Oh, is that a fact?", Sapphire said intrigued. "Wanna put that to the test?"

"Alright, why don't you two cool it," Neo said, trying to bring down the energy. "We have a whole essay to finish tonight, and I'd rather not us fight every ten minutes."

Ace and Sapphire stared at each other, both wanting nothing more than to face off right that moment, but for the sake of their grades, they walked away. Sapphire claimed the floor next to the pack of water bottles while Ace chose to sit on Neo's bed. Ace put his black backpack beside him.

"Let's just get everything done then so we can all get out of here," he said, clearly not wanting to spend his time with the rest of the group. "What's first?"

"Well, I saw that you and Neo did the formatting already for the document, so I guess now we need to do the analysis portion," Melina noted. She pushed her laptop off of her and slipped off the beanbag and onto the floor. She scooted towards the center of the room and pulled out a set of cards from her pocket. "We need to analyze each other's decks and rate them using Professor's Rubric." She placed the pile of cards on the floor; the cards were slightly damaged, with some wear and tear done over the years engraved on the card.

"You don't sleeve your cards?", Ace said slightly disgusted. He slipped off of the deck and opened a plastic deck box strapped to jeans. He pulled out a set of dark blue-sleeved cards from the box and laid them beside Melina's deck.

"By the time I had considered the idea, the damage was already done," Melina shrugged. "Plus, sometimes duel disks have issues scanning them if they are."

"Not if you use Professional League Disks," Ace replied.

"Ooooo, you have one of those?" Sapphire perked up.

"Yup," Ace said as he reached for his backpack and pulled out his disk. He showed it off to the group. It was painted with bright white and dark blue highlights, and the words "Heartland Pro" were engraved in elegant cursive. It was in near perfect condition, still with a nice shine. It was a bit on the bigger side, but the design of it spoke for itself. It was the definition premium, with all the bells and whistles a duelist could ever need. "Cool, right? I got it as a going-away gift", Ace bragged.

"Woah, it's just like in tournaments!" Sapphire said, admiring it. Melina pushed up her glasses.

"Incredibly well built, elegant, beautiful, premium," she said, fascinated. "It's a Heartland Pro alright, what a beautiful marvel."

"Right? It's the best of the best", Ace gushed. "For any serious duelist, this is the only choice."

"Not everyone has the want to drop 700 dollars on a Heartland when you can get a used Kaiba Disk for eighty bucks online", Neo pointed out.

"Of course you would say that, cheapskate" Ace rolled his eyes. "Those things are from the stone ages; it's a miracle they're still even compatible."

"It's a feat of technology, being able to still update such an old model," Melina said.

"Alright, well, are we gonna do this or what?" Neo said. He got off of the chair and joined the group on the floor. "Who's first?"

"Guess I'll show off mine first," Ace said as he picked up his deck and began sorting the cards. One by one, the cards were divided until the secrets of Ace's deck were revealed. "This right here is my newest deck; I just built it a couple weeks ago, my ABC Dragon Buster Deck!", he said showing it off.

"ABC's, huh?", Melina said, staring at the arrangement of cards. She reached for her laptop and pulled up an image of the rubric. She stared at it and switched back and forth between the cards and the screen before nodding. "I mean, it's definitely good; I'd say it covers all the checks. Forty Cards, consistent starting engine, clear win condition with ABC Dragon Buster-"

"Why are you running three copies of Assault Core?", Neo said interrupting Melina.

"Consistency obviously," Ace swiftly replied. "I mean, the goal is to get all three in the grave, so you want as many as you can get in hand."

"Not really, there are ways to search out A, and the effect on A isn't all that great in comparison to B or C. You'd rather start out with a B or C, right?", Neo said looking up at Ace.

"Uhh, y-yeah, I guess?", Ace said flustered. He didn't imagine he would be getting this critically analyzed, and by Neo nonetheless.

"Then we need to increase your chances of starting out with one of those than starting out with a brick card like A," Neo said as he reached for a copy of the card and put it off to the side. "Cut back on one, and in its place, I'd run another union hangar; it's essential you get that active as fast as you can, so any increased chance to pull it we can take. You can also cut back on some of these hand traps; Ash Blossom is good, obviously, but you don't need Ghost Ogre or any of these other ones filling your deck; I'd just side those", Neo continued, engulfed in the strategy of it all. He looked up at the group to see if they were following along, but instead, they all just sat confused. "What?" he said, now confused also.

"You're pretty good at this," Sapphire commented.

"Yeah, I don't really know the deck, so I didn't pick up on that," Melina added.

"Well, I mean, it's just basic deck analysis; you just have to understand the goal of the deck and then do everything you can to reach that goal," Neo noted.

"Tsk," Ace clicked before quickly putting his cards in a pile and slipping them back in. "Whatever," he said, irritated. "Someone else go."

"Okay…" Melina said, uncomfortable, now taking her cards and dividing them as well. "Here you go."

The three stared at the deck; there were the typical types of cards, monster, spell trap, but there was also a set of white cards off to the side.

"Syncros?" Neo questioned. "You don't see those too often."

"Yeah, well, I just like them," Melina said, scratching her head. "They have a really cool mechanic, and a lot of them have this old junkish kind of style to them, which is cool."

"So I take it that's also the reason why you chose this deck in general then?" Neo said now, looking at the whole deck.

"Yeah, Junk deck," Melina replied.

"Hmm," Neo said, pondering the deck. Like she had mentioned, it was an arrangement of machines yet again, but this time with a more dystopian kind of vibe to them. "Well, truth be told, I really don't know a lot about good tuner builds," Neo began. "But I have heard that running a copy of Glow-Up Bulb is pretty good; you can try that if you're looking for better consistency with getting out tuners."

"Okay, I'll look into that," she said, beginning to sort the cards back into a pile.

"Alright, my turn!" Sapphire declared, slamming down pile of old beaten-up cards. "Behold! My Gem Knights!", he said flipping the deck over and spreading them across the floor. The three stared at the deck, looking at the arrange of knights covered with various shiny ores. They sat there at the deck, stunned.

"Wow…" Ace said.

"This is," Melina continued.

"Terrible," Neo finished. "There is zero win condition to this deck; you have no traps, you only run two copies of polymerization, and that's it."

"Oh, I run Berserker's Soul too!", Sapphire said, pulling out the card from his pocket.

"W-why?" Neo questioned.

"Because it's cool?" Sapphire said. "Is there any other reason why you'd run a certain card?"

The group breathed a heavy sigh, Ace facepalmed.

"Yeah, sorry, this is just not good," Neo said plainly.

"Aw, Come on!" Sapphire pleaded. He turned to Melina "Melina?"

"Yeah, I have to agree with Neo here…" she said as lightly as possible. "It...just needs a little tweaking is all; it just doesn't fit with the rubric".

"Well, is there a category on that rubric for heart?" Sapphire asked. "Because this deck is filled to the brim with it!".

"Let's just move on." Ace said, cutting the conversation short.

"Well, we've done everyone," Melina stated. The three then turned once again towards Neo. "All that's left is…"

"Me," Neo sighed.

"Do you even have a deck?" Ace questioned. Neo, without a word, stood up from the floor and went back towards the desk. He pulled the drawer beneath it, revealing a set of pencils, paper, and in the corner a black plastic deck box. He grabbed the small box and tossed them to Ace.

"I bought this yesterday for the project," he said as Ace pulled out the new packet of cards. "You can look at those; it's probably not all that great though, I didn't put much effort into it."

"Neo's deck, huh?" Sapphire said with glee. "Now this is something I gotta see!". He slid over towards Ace and looked at the deck he was shuffling through. Melina, too silently, leaned to look at the cards. She breathed in a bit of air.

"There's something so soothing about the new card smell," she noted as she took another breath of it. One by one they shuffled through the cards, inside was an arrange of small creatures. Red lions, pink dolphins, green penguins, as well as a series of human-like characters who are used to tame the beasts.

"Ritual Beasts, huh?" Ace asked. "Pretty rare deck; I don't think I've seen anyone run them in a tournament for years."

"Do you seriously think I go to tournaments?" Neo replied. He thought about the chain events that led him to buy the deck. "I don't know, contact fusion is a pretty interesting concept, and the card art is pretty good, so when I saw them in the card catalog, I figured why not? It's not like I plan on using it".

"I mean, the deck itself is pretty well built," Melina commented. "I'm not sure what the win condition of Ritual Beasts are, but it seems you have your main combo pieces in order, and you have a good coverage of disruptions." They continued to browse the set of cards; they blazed through the collection of cards, quickly analyzing each pick. Suddenly, however, the three stopped and looked at one in particular.

"Hey Woah, no way is that…", Melina said staring at the deck.

"What?" Neo asked.

"Look at that!", Sapphire exclaimed, taking the card out of the deck and showing it off. "Its Elemental Hero Neos!".

"What?!" Neo snapped towards Sapphire to look at the card; there was no doubt. There in his hands laid Neos, the alien protector, covered in white, with highlights of red and blue. Neo was stunned. He was sure he had given it to his mom. He stepped back flabbergasted. He did give it to her… _right?_ Was that part just some kind of illusion? He knew he was tired that day, but he was sure he had his chain of events correct.

"It is quite the old card," Ace commented as Sapphire laid it on the ground. "But I don't know why you put it in this deck. I mean, I assume it has sentimental value, but it doesn't mesh with this deck at all, and the deck size is up to 41 now".

"I-" Neo said, still confused.

"Is...everything okay?" Melina looked at Neo, concerned.

Neo shook him out of his own head. "Yeah, no, sorry," he quickly swiped the card from the ground. "I... must have put it in on accident… I guess…"

"You guess?" Ace said. "Could you come up with a straight answer for once?".

"For once?", Neo said now even more confused. "I'm not that indecisive."

"Are you kidding me?" Ace replied. "If there's anything I'd describe you as, it's indecisive. You're always off in that head of yours, you know that? Like you're narrating your life in there, listening to a narrator state off each word in the slowest, most detailed way possible. Newsflash, buddy, your life isn't all that interesting or difficult. I'm pretty sure that book would consist of nothing but pacing around your room and whining.".

Neo twitched at the insult. "Why do I feel like you have some kind of personal vendetta against me? Like, what have I done to make you hate me so much?" he said.

Ace stood up to face Neo, "I'm pretty sure I've already established in great detail how you piss me off," he said once again, sizing Neo up. "I'm disgusted that I even have to be in your near vicinity right now."

"Hey, you two…" Sapphire said, standing up. He stepped in, attempting to stop the escalation, but then stopped. The damage was already done; getting in the way of these two right now would basically be suicide.

"You know you could like, leave, right?" Neo retorted. "It's not like anyone was forcing you to be here."

"Unlike you, Neo, I actually care about my grades," Ace replied quickly.

"That's a bit surprising; a Princeton who cares about school?" Neo said, stepping closer to Ace.

"Your family doesn't exactly have the best track record either," Ace said, accepting Neo's challenge and stepping closer as well. "Pretty sure your dad's brain is made out of duel monster cards." Neo twitched at the insult. He was prepared to face insults against him, but insults against his family were something else. Neo stepped a bit closer.

"Make fun of my family again," Neo muttered towards Ace. He rolled his left hand in a fist. "See what happens."

"I don't have to when the clown of the family himself is standing right in front of me," Ace said. Clearly, he was not intimidated by Neo in the slightest. "Now, what do you want me to start with first? Your messy hair that should've been cut a month ago? Your outfit that looks like it was found in the garbage dump behind where you work? We could always go Whiney Personality for 500; that one's a Jeopardy classic".

"Let's all calm down a bit…." Melina interrupted, tossing her hat into the ring for attempting to stop the upcoming fight.

"Fuck off," Neo replied to Ace, completely ignoring Melina.

"Ooh, we're down to middle school retorts now, are we?", Ace said smirking. "You had like what, two actual comebacks, three? Probably better than Allie, although she is an actual middle schooler. Ooo, Allie! Now that's a fun topic, let's talk about that. Imagine, a thirteen-year-old, who's done nearly five times more than her older brother, now that's depressing".

With that last insult, Neo could hold it in no longer. These past two months filled with nothing but sadness, frustration, anger, all bottled up, were released instantly. Neo grabbed Ace's vest and wheeled his body around, tossing him behind.

Ace reacted quickly, standing up and tackling Neo's waist. Neo grabbed Ace's head and pushed it back, resisting the tackle.

The two were locked in a power struggle. Tugging back and forth until Ace built up enough strength to overpower Neo shoving him to the ground.

He got on top of Neo and began to dole out a punch. Neo once again reacted fast, grabbing his fist and going in for a right hook for Ace's head. Ace was launched off of Neo, and without a second to heal, the two charged each other once more. Grabbing each other's arms and attempting to put the other back.

"H-Hey!" Sapphire shouted as he rushed in to break the fight. He grabbed each of their left hands as they were locked in the struggle, but nearly the second he did, both Ace and Neo shoved Sapphire out.

"Out of the way!" Ace yelled as Sapphire hit the floor. The two stared at each other, their eyes wide with anger as they called upon all of the rage they had in hopes of letting them win. They were filled with madness and the thrill of a fight.

Nothing was going to get in their way this time. This time, they would resolve this issue for good, even if it resulted in one of them in the hospital. This time, tonight on the warm Thursday night, at 9:12pm, in the small dorm, they would establish superiority with one swift blow.

Suddenly, the front door shot open, the back of the white door slamming on the end of the wall. The two snapped to the door. From outside stood Ruby, wearing a pair of red sweatpants and a white t-shirt stained with various paint splatters. On the top of her short crimson hair sat a white cloth, ideally to cover her hair from the paint. There she stood, with a paint bucket in her right hand and a clean white brush placed on the top, about to fall off. Her eyes were wide as she stood straight at what caused the ruckus.

"Oh…"

"...shit", Melina said, finishing Sapphire's statement. The two bystanders watched as Ruby took a heavy breath out and put the paint can down in the entryway.

She stepped into the small dorm room. Her feet slammed on the wood as she speed-walked her way towards the two, still with their arms grabbing the others. She approached the two, stopping right in front of them before staring directly at them, her face enraged. Slowly she lifted her two arms into the air, wrapping them into fists. Then her arms took a shot at the thm, landing direct hits on both of their skulls. The two yelped a bit as they both fell on the floor.

" **The hell is wrong with you two!** " Ruby yelled at a volume even louder than Neo and Ace's argument was. "I can hear you from _four fucking doors down!_ People actually sleep here, you know!". Neo and Ace groaned as they slowly looked up at Ruby.

"That's it," Ruby muttered. "I'm sick and tired of your guy's shit. We're fixing this here and now". She stepped toward Sapphire, still on the ground, and grabbed his redshirt. With little to no effort, she dragged Sapphire with her as they walked back to the open door.

"H-hey! What are you doing?" Sapphire said as he was kicked out by Ruby. Melina quickly caught onto what Ruby was doing and quietly stood up and exited the room as well.

"You two aren't leaving this room until you work out whatever issues you have, you hear?!" Ruby shouted once again. "And if you can't shut yourselves up, my paint cans will...for good".

"You can't just lock us in here and expect us to get along!" Ace shouted back at Ruby as he stormed towards the door.

"Oh yeah? Watch me", Ruby said as she swiftly slammed the door shut.

"Hey!" Ace yelled back as he now full sprinted to the door. He turned the brass handle of the door and tried to open the door, no luck. He tried, again and again, to push the door open, but the door refused. He punched the top of the door repeatedly in an attempt to force it open. He then took a few steps back and prepared to rush it.

"She thinks she can keep me in here, that stupid bit-" Ace muttered to himself. The second he began the final word, the door opened once more. Ruby, without a comment, stared squarely at Ace; her face exuded an intimidating pressure. It was a face of death, almost as if the grim reaper himself was staring at him, daring him to finish the sentence.

Ace's eyes widened as, for the first time, he stepped back. Somehow this was far more intimidating than the eye he had seen previously. At the sight of Ace backing down, Ruby's face lightened. "That's what I thought," she had messaged to him without moving her lips. Once again, she pulled the door closed. Now there was nothing but silence in the room. Neo slowly stood up and patted himself off.

"Nice going, dickhead", Neo said, breaking the silence quickly.

"It's your fault, dumbass!" Ace shouted at Neo.

"My fault? You're the one who keeps trying to provoke me", Neo replied, raising his voice. "I swear I literally did nothing to you, and yet you choose to do this anyways. Is this kind of stuff molded into your DNA as a kid? Did your dad only teach you hate and insults or something? Because it seems like that's all you know".

Ace tensed up once again at the topic of family. Once again, he rolled his hands into a first as he trembled but then stopped himself.

"Forget it.", he sighed. "Let's just do the stupid assignment so I can leave this room." He stormed back over toward the bed and grabbed his laptop. He took it to the opposite corner of Neo's desk and plopped himself here. Neo sighed as he, too, slipped back into his desk. Neo reached for his bag and pulled out his old pair of earbuds. He plugged them into his phone and once again attempted to drown out his surroundings with music.

Silently the two began to attack their keyboards. One by one, they slammed their fingers onto the keys forcing each to shoot out a letter. The room was silent as each person took out their frustration on their poor laptops. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. Paragraph by paragraph. The two typed on and on and seemed to get nowhere in the assignment.

Neo stopped for a moment and pulled out his phone. "10:09pm" it read as Neo sighed. He began to read back the gibberish he had just written. No good. It looked like he was writing in some ancient text; he couldn't help it; there was too much cramming his mind. That stupid eye, his family issues, his personal issues, work, tension with Ace and his classmates, there was too much of it all at once. His mind was overheated.

He stared at the blue screen, resting his head on his hand as his eyes began to drift off. Ace, at the sound of movement, looked up and spotted Neo.

"Hey, no slacking off, it's late, and I wanna go home," He said quietly to Neo.

"Relax, will you?" Neo replied, matching Ace's hushed tone. "I'm just reading my paragraph… is all".

Neo slouched back once again and let out a long yawn. The yawn ran through the room and immediately affected Ace, following suit. Ace immediately shook himself out of the tired state and went back to typing. Neo's eyes wandered to Ace. He stared intently at the screen as his hands typed a flurry of words. He looked focused, but his face also had a noticeable tiredness to it.

"Haven't been sleeping much either, huh?", Neo said, attempting to start small talk. Ace, however, was far from in the mood and just chose to completely ignore Neo's comment. "Have you been thinking about it too?", Neo continued attempting to push more, only to receive the same mute response. Neo fully turned to Ace. "Hey, I'm trying to talk to you," Neo said, slightly offended.

"And I'm trying to work," Ace growled, shooting a look at Neo. "Does it look like I wanna talk to you?"

Neo threw his arms up in frustration and just went back to typing. "Sorry for trying to be friendly… apparently...". Neo exhaled as he typed away a few more words but quickly shook his head. He had to try more than that. "Look, I get it, you don't like me, and frankly, I really don't like you either. We don't have to be friends here, but we at least need to be able to work with each other. We need to get an A".

"We?" Ace tilted his head. "My grade is fine; even if I get a C, it doesn't hurt me all that much. _You need an A_ ".

"Oh, come on, dude, really?" Neo groaned. "You're the most unbearable person I've ever met."

"Thank you, I take that as a compliment," Ace retorted, raising his voice.

Neo shot out of his chair and stepped towards Ace. "What is wrong with you! I'm clearly trying here to make this work, but you keep trying to shoot me down! What is your problem! What did I do to make you so incredibly pissed off at me! As far as I'm aware, I've done nothing; I haven't even known you for that long; how could I have possibly ruined your life that much in that little of time!"

Ace immediately shot up from the floor as well. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again, so it stays in your head this time!" he shouted back. "You are the most whiney, most weak-minded person on the face of the planet! You always act depressed, trying to make people believe that you have it rough, so they feel bad, because 'oh no! Jaden Yuki's son is so sad and lonely, what a terrible thing it is to be the son of a famous guy like him'. Do you know how many people would kill to be in your shoes right now? Do you know just how many people want to have such a cool family like that? You have the support of Jaden, Principal Alexis, Allie, and what do you choose to do with that? Nothing! You choose to sit there in your room crying all day with your earbuds in listening to Lofi-fucking-Hip Hop! That's why I despise you, Neo! For being in such a wanted position, and still being such a waste of fucking space!".

"Fuck you!", Neo shouted.

"Fuck you!", Ace shouted back.

"Fuck you!", they both roared simultaneously.

The door swung open once again. Immediately the two boys snapped their heads back at the door. Once again, there was Ruby, giving off a face of frustration. This time she carried a clear plastic bag with an orange text that read "For Emergency Uses Only," inside was some kind of red object and an air pump. Quickly, she tore open the bag and pulled out the deflated item. She took the pump and forcefully stabbed it into a small hole placed onto the object. Rapidly she pumped it up until it formed the shape of a red dodgeball. Neo hadn't seen one of those in forever. It was one of those Elementary School balls kids throw around and used for every game possible, whether that be dodgeball or foursquare.

Once fully inflated, Ruby gave it a squish to test the air pressure and then pulled out a sharpie from her sweats. She popped the cap of the black marker open with her teeth and began to scribble on the ball. Shortly after writing, she stopped and put the lid back onto the pen. Finally, satisfied with her work, she tossed the ball in the room. The red ball gave off that famous bounce sound as it bounced once on the floor and landed in Ace's hand.

"What's this supposed to be for?" he said as he inspected it.

Ruby gave no response and instead simply closed the door back shut. Ace stared at the red ball and spun it around to read the black writing. He gave a sigh and rolled his eyes. He tossed the ball back down onto the ground, bounce passing it to Neo.

Neo inspected the fresh, new ball; he turned it around and read the bold black writing. "Stress Ball," the words stated. Stress ball? What, was he supposed to punch it or something? How was this supposed to do anything?

He looked back up at Ace, looking squarely back at him, likely asking the same question. He held the ball in his hands. The scent of the ball and the feel of the rugged covering brought back a sense of nostalgia. Like the ghost of his fourth-grade self had possessed him, Neo felt the sudden urge to throw it, and low and behold, there in front of him was the perfect target. Slowly he pulled the ball back, winding up before shooting it at Ace. This didn't phase Ace at all as he stopped the ball in midair, catching it with only one hand. He paused before tossing the ball up in the air and serving it with his left hand to Neo. The ball bounced once on the hardwood before Neo received it, hitting it calmly with his right hand.

The rally continued, the ball slowly bouncing back and forth as the two continued to calmly hit it back. As the hits continued, so did the ball's momentum as the rally began to pick up speed.

 _Hit, bounce hit. Hit, bounce, hit. Hit bounce hit. Hit bounce hit._ The ball began to go faster and faster as the two began to hit harder and harder, and the rally dragged on longer and longer.

With all of their built-up anger and frustration, the two held nothing back. Ace slammed the ball towards the right as Neo quickly saw this occurring and dashed over to the other side of the room. Neo slammed it back as Ace sprinted towards the bean bag, diving into it and hitting the ball back. Neo took this chance to counterattack, hitting it squarely in the center, releasing everything into the ball, but Ace got back up, winding his hand back and shooting the ball directly at Neo. Neo, without any time to react, took his two hands and grabbed the ball. The ball spun in his hands before the ball slid off of his sweaty palms and fell onto the bunk bed. The sheets muffling the sound.

The rally was over as the sound of hitting and bouncing ceased. All that remained was the loud and tired breaths of air from the two players. Each of them staggered back before finding a place to rest. Neo slouched on the chair, Ace fell onto the bean bag. Their breaths continued, the two had each released everything into that ball, and now all that remained was tiredness.

Neo gasped for air, trying to take in every bit of oxygen possible. He let his heart rate calm down, before looking faintly at Ace.

"...sorry", the boy muttered to the other. "I've been… stressed … couldn't hold it in, so I just… took it out...". Ace processed the apology as he, too, let his body rest. No response.

Quietly, they each sat there, trying to catch their heart rates and bring them back down. Time crawled to a halt as the sounds of tired breaths drowned out the silence. Slowly but surely, their breaths began to slow down.

Neo looked at the package of plastic water bottles to the left of him; nothing looked more tempting. He forced himself to stand up, slowly his body obeyed. He stumbled towards it, ripping open the plastic and pulling out one, but before he turned back towards his desk, he looked at Ace, who was staring at the water bottle. He wanted nothing more than to get it but couldn't bring himself to stand up and walk. Neo stared at him then back at the water bottle. Finally, he sighed as he tossed the bottle over to Ace and grabbed one for himself.

Ace caught the bottle as the two hastily popped open the cap, taking large gulps of the liquid of life. Simultaneously the two exhaled a sigh of satisfaction as they each put the bottle down and continued to rest.

Neo looked back at Ace, he was still looking down at the ground, his body slumped over the bean bag. He still chose not to respond to the apology.

Slowly Ace at last turned to Neo, his mind still not at full capacity.

"When I was three… I was… adopted by my dad", Ace confessed, having to take in more air to continue talking. "I don't… remember much, but I remember thinking he was cool… I wanted...to be like him". Ace looked at Neo, "Why don't… you want to?"

"I… do…", Neo replied quietly, taking another sip. "But I'm… not him…".

Ace looked back down at the ground as the two finally caught back up. Deafening silence once again rang out. Ace thought for a while before turning to Neo once agian.

"Yeah," Ace finally replied to Neo.

"Yeah, what?"

"Yeah… I haven't been sleeping well recently".

"The eye?"

"Mhm, can't take my mind off of it for some reason," Ace replied as he thought about the haunting eyes. "I need to find some way to get rid of it."

"Maybe seeing it again and trying to figure out what it is would help?" Neo said.

"Maybe, the question is how we would do that," Ace said as he began to think of plans.

"Yeah…" Neo concluded. He thought about it for a minute. He couldn't keep living like this, and clearly, neither could Ace. Being robbed of sleep was essentially a war crime for a teen who needed every last bit of it. He needed to rid his mind of his horrors, and the best way to get rid of his fear was to face it. Someway, there had to be some way to lure back out the maiden and see the eye once more.

Suddenly, the project entered his mind once more. Neo quickly turned back towards the laptop.

"Well, we can think about that later; let's just get this project over with so we can sleep. We can just proofread it tomorrow morning before submission".

"Yeah, sounds good," Ace agreed, finally returning back to typing. Once again, the two went back to writing, now typing slowly, cautiously, taking the time to process and understand every letter. Neo after another long set of typing, once again looked at his work; it looked much better. Of course, he still had to make a conclusion and intro, but for the most part, he was satisfied with his work. As he was in his mind, another thought occurred.

"Hey," he said to Ace.

"Yeah?", Ace replied still looking at his laptop and typing away.

"Why did you tell me all of that?" Neo asked. Ace stopped and pondered it briefly before going back to typing.

"Dunno," he finally stated. "I just, felt like I could...I guess".

"Hm," Neo said, turning back to the laptop. "I see."

It was 11:01; after roughly two hours of being locked in the dorm room, the door finally opened up once more. There, carrying four cups of coffee with green lids, entered Sapphire and Melina cautiously. Their eyes widened when they saw Ace and Neo quietly working away. Neo looked up and spotted the two.

"Hey, took you guys long enough," Neo said calmly, lifting his hand up as a sign of hello.

"Sorry, the line was long like always," Sapphire said as he scanned the room. "Is uh… everything alright?"

"I mean, other than the fact that we have four blank pages that need to be filled in by tomorrow, yeah," Neo replied, still somewhat stressed.

"Our portions are done already; we're just reviewing them," Ace said as he continued to browse the essay. "Where's Ruby?"

"She left nearly the second she shut the door on you guys," Melina replied. "Me and Sapphire figured we should probably wait a bit before coming back in."

"Probably a good choice," Neo said, implying that there was more arguing. "But yeah, can you guys read our portions?"

"Sure," Melina said as she fully stepped into the room and crossed over to Neo's desk, where she placed the cups down. Over Neo's shoulder, she stared at the paper. Her eyes widened. "Is this Ace's portion?"

"Yeah?", Ace said, confused.

"Woah, this is killer work!" Melina said. "This is like professional-level type article writing."

"Really?", Ace replied somewhat flattered at the compliment. "I mean, I barely even put much thought into it… I was kind of just spitting out stuff".

"Well, whatever you were thinking, it came out really good!", she said complementing Ace.

"T-thanks?" Ace said, unsure what to do with a compliment not on his dueling but on his writing.

"Well, it looks like we have some work to do, Sapphire," Melina said as she walked to the bean bag and picked up her massive laptop. "We can't let freshmen beat upperclassmen."

"Alright! Let's show 'em who's boss!" Sapphire exclaimed as he dashed over towards the desk putting his two coffee cups down and then going back towards his laptop.

"Are you just like, constantly high or something?" Ace questioned. "I fail to understand how you can be so excited about essay writing".

"Sure am! I'm high on life! And... also coffee" Sapphire smiled, like the ray of sunlight he was. "You guys want some? We bought extras just in case."

"Nah… I actually think I'm gonna sleep while you guys work", Neo said as he finally got out of his chair and stretched.

"Yeah, I think I might clock out too," Ace said as he slowly walked towards the bunk bed and stepped up towards the top bunk, choosing to lay down on the free unused beds. "Just wake us up when you're done."

"Well, alright then," Sapphire said, a tad bummed that the two didn't end up drinking the coffee they bought.

"Oh, by the way, when are you guys free next week?" Neo said, remembering he wanted to ask them.

"Umm, I don't know; I'd have to know my workload for next week," Melina replied. "Why?"

"If you guys aren't busy, we have some uh… tasks...we need help with", Ace answered as he began to lie down.

"We can do it on the weekend if it fits your schedule better, but we need help with a bit of hunting..I guess you could say." Neo continued, trying not to spill all of the details immediately.

"I mean as long as it's not actual hunting, I'd be down", Melina replied.

"Ooo sounds fun, count me in!" Sapphire exclaimed as he raised his fist in the air.

Thus, the plan and date were set for when they would take action. When they would rid themselves of that horrible nightmare they've been having. They would uncover the Mystery Maiden, whatever the cost.


End file.
